Is this the new face of organized crime? Decoding Razzlekhan, the rapping bitcoin fraudster
Heather Morgan is free, for now. The 31-year-old fraudster was offered bail on Valentine’s Day, releasing her from incarceration while her husband, Ilya “Dutch” Liechtenstein, remains in federal bondage.
Morgan is at the centre of a psychedelic cryptocurrency saga, that began when the pair were arrested on suspicion of laundering $4.5bn worth of stolen bitcoin. That money was originally pilfered from a Hong Kong-based crypto exchange firm called Bitfinex, and it breaks the record for the most digital currency that’s ever been seized by a criminal sting operation. (The pair allegedly spent the money on NFTs, gold and a Walmart gift card.) It’s the first major crime saga of the Web3 era – Blockchain noir, ripe for a Safdie Brothers film – and each twist in the storyline is more implausible than the last.
But who is this Bitcoin crime queen and what does she tell us about the future of organized crime and the stark new inequalities that it might create?
The money that Morgan and Lichtenstein are accused of laundering was originally pilfered six years ago, and honestly it’s a minor miracle that the Department of Justice was capable of digging it up in the first place as crypto is notoriously difficult to recover. So far they have seized $3.6bn. So if you are already the sort of person who might be seduced by the grifter’s lifestyle, cryptocurrency is a natural hideout point.
Everything about this case is more evidence of the worryingly psychotropic texture our monetary system has taken on in 2022 – a year when late-night hosts are dropping thousands of dollars on cartoon apes and YouTube prankster Logan Paul is making $20m per boxing match. It is hard to articulate how it feels to be alive in an age of massive wealth disparity
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