Heather Morgan, Rapping Tech CEO, Accused of Laundering Billions in

Bitcoin. NFTs. A PPP loan. And a rapping tech entrepreneur.

A New York City couple were arrested Tuesday morning by federal agents on charges of laundering some $4.5 billion stolen in a massive 2016 cryptocurrency exchange breach.

As might be expected in 2022, the latest federal law enforcement takedown features the buzziest of buzz-worthy themes—as well as some pretty awful rap lyrics.

Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife, Heather Rhiannon Morgan, 31, are accused of helping to “wash” 119,754 Bitcoin pilfered from Bitfinex and allegedly transferred into a digital wallet controlled by Lichtenstein, a dual citizen of both the U.S. and Russia, prosecutors announced. Court documents describe an incredibly complex investigation carried out by special agents with the IRS, FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security.

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

“Today’s arrests, and the department’s largest financial seizure ever, show that cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said in a statement. “In a futile effort to maintain digital anonymity, the defendants laundered stolen funds through a labyrinth of cryptocurrency transactions. Thanks to the meticulous work of law enforcement, the department once again showed how it can and will follow the money, no matter what form it takes.”

Lichtenstein and Morgan are scheduled to make an initial appearance in federal court this afternoon. It is unclear if the two have yet retained lawyers to speak on their behalf. Lichtenstein’s father, Illinois-based mortgage broker Yevgeniy Likhtenshteyn, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that he was unable to comment on his son’s arrest.

Morgan, who is also a rapper and goes by the stage name Razzlekhan, got engaged to Lichtenstein in 2019.

“I got engaged to my best friend and the woman of my dreams!” he wrote on Facebook, describing “how it all went down.”

A photographer who was contacted by Morgan to document the engagement told The Daily Beast that she described herself and Lichtenstein as “weird and eccentric,” saying that they both enjoyed “taxidermy and weird art.”

Morgan, who often referred to herself in the third person, said she was “flashy and colorful,” while Lichtenstein was “into gray and black and some leather and goth ninja,” according to the photographer, who asked not to be named.

The pair wanted photos of “Dutch and all his wives,” which would be Photoshopped shots of Lichtenstein with Morgan “as Razzlekhan with multiple personas,” according to the photographer, who said the whole project “sounded exhausting.”

“I was not lying when I said I was too busy to take on this project,” he said. “But listening to these raps she made, they were so bad, I was kind of like, ‘I don’t know if I can deal with this.’ Because sometimes, for a certain price, you can make your schedule work. And I couldn’t really come up with a…