They definitely had custody of the funds and felt obligated to try and launder it
It seems like the government needs to figure out if they were the only ones with custody, which is proving a negative with private keys, but the government seems to feel like it’s needs a greater proof of the actual heist of bitfinex so they can pin the rest on this couple.
Still reading though, this is just what I’ve parsed so far.
The IRS-CI agent had requested CFAA and Wire Fraud charges.
I think pretty damning are accounts tied to their personal identities and emails to exchanges where they lied about the source of funds. How can they explain that away? Their email addresses were hacked? Funds moved to their personal bank accounts and used for expenses was unintentional? It seems like a big stretch.
okay I finished reading it, it is pretty damning and the report does say that it is just one agent investigating certain specific criminal charges that "doesn't reflect all of the investigations of the government"
Ilya had trouble figuring out how to launder it
Still the outstanding question is whether he is the only one with the encrypted files, or if he was a service provider. not that its a real question to me, its something the government has to prove for stronger charges like the CFAA to be levied and stick.
There is certainly the potential for an argument that they didn't do the hack, that someone else was more involved, that they were small players in this, etc. but it's highly likely they were involved in some way.
there is speculation spreading that they bought the bitcoin at a discount at the time, circumventing the trustlessness by taking the private keys (and hoping the seller doesn't use another copy to move the funds later). this would have been just a few million dollars in 2016.
inspirational in the direction of ideas on this case, and I know people that would trade a private key directly.
would help explain the amateurish laundering.
could be an interesting defense. could explain why they didn't run or do anything when their ISP notified them of the US government snooping back in November.
