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On February 8, 2022, the Department of Justice announced the seizure of a record $3.6 billion in stolen BTC it alleges was tied to the 2016 hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange.  A husband-wife duo, Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan of New York, New York were arrested the same day and charged via a criminal complaint with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States.  Lichtenstein and Morgan are being held on $5 million and $3 million in bail, respectively, and will be on house arrest pending trial.

The Statement of Facts by the government in support of the criminal complaint filed against the defendants reveals a vast and complicated web of transactions that allegedly permitted Lichtenstein and Morgan to transfer approximately 25,000 of the 119,754 BTC stolen by hackers—valued at “only” $71 million at the time of the theft but now worth about $4.5 billion—to various virtual currency exchangers.  According to the Statement of Facts, the stolen BTC was shuttled to an unhosted wallet (i.e., a cryptocurrency wallet not controlled by a third-party but by the user) with over 2,000 BTC addresses, then to various accounts at the “darknet market AlphaBay,” later to a number of accounts at four different virtual currency exchangers, then to more unhosted BTC wallets, and finally to accounts at six more virtual currency exchangers where it was converted into fiat currency, gift cards, and precious metals.  The defendants further allegedly liquidated BTC through a BTC ATM and purchasing non-fungible tokens.

As if the sheer volume and layers of accounts was not enough, the duo allegedly:

  • Moved the funds in a “series of small amounts, totaling thousands of transactions”;
  • Used software to “automate transactions” which allowed for “many transactions to take place in a short period of time”;
  • “Layered” transactions by depositing and withdrawing the BTC through many accounts to obfuscate the trail, including through extensive layering activity that employed the “peel” chain technique; and
  • “Chain hopped” by converting BTC to anonymity-enhanced virtual currency to cut and disguise the blockchain trail.

Continue Reading  A Record $3.6 Billion Seizure and the Twisting Paths of Money Laundering in the Digital World

Sentencing is a critical stage in the federal criminal process, particularly given the incredibly high rate of guilty pleas in federal court.  There is a very strong argument that sentencing far eclipses the importance of the increasingly rare trial in the federal criminal system.  If a federal criminal investigation cannot be “killed,” then in many cases – particularly in “white collar” cases – the focus early on for both the defense and the prosecution is the sentencing hearing, and how to maximize one’s position, because a federal charge often produces a conviction via plea, or less often, via trial.  Stated otherwise, federal criminal defense is often all about sentencing.

At sentencing, sometimes defendants – and, less often, the prosecution – will make arguments regarding “similarly situated” defendants, and the sentences that they received.  Sometimes these arguments resonate with the sentencing court; sometimes not.  Regardless, these arguments can be tricky because reliable “statistics” are elusive, and it’s not always clear that justifiable comparisons are being drawn by either side.  We therefore were interested when the U.S. Sentencing Commission (“the Commission”) recently issued the Judiciary Sentencing Information (“JSIN”) platform.  Although it is difficult to draw clear conclusions from the JSIN platform, the data is nonetheless fascinating, and we discuss in this blog potential insights into sentences for money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) offenses.

We have reviewed the data and created summary charts for your consideration.  Because the Commission has invited federal judges to use the JSIN platform when sentencing, it by definition is relevant to defense attorneys and prosecutors.
Continue Reading  U.S. Sentencing Commission Data on Money Laundering and BSA-Related Offenses Reveals:  Courts Often Sentence Below the Guidelines Range

Caracas, Venezuela

Indictment Alleges $1.6 Billion in Corrupt Contracts, Funneled Through Shell Companies and Correspondent Accounts, and Paid With Gold Sold on Behalf of Venezuela

On October 21, 2021, a grand jury indictment was unsealed in the Southern District of Florida charging two Venezuelan and three Colombian citizens with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and four counts of money laundering.  The indictment revealed an alleged bribery scheme involving a former Venezuelan state governor and Venezuelan government authorities that provide food and medicine to citizens in need.  A portion of the $1.6 billion in contracts secured by alleged bribes was laundered into or through the United States through a web of accounts and businesses.  This indictment serves as yet another example of the United States Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) use of money laundering charges to combat corruption in Venezuela (as we have blogged about repeatedly: here, here, here, here, here and here).  It also represents another example of DOJ using the money laundering statutes to charge foreign government officials at the highest levels when the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cannot apply.
Continue Reading  (More) Money Laundering Charges Announced for Alleged $1.6 Billion Venezuelan Corruption Scheme

Art & Antiquities; Beneficial Owners; Foreign Corruption — and More

We are really pleased to be moderating, once again, the Practising Law Institute’s 2021 Anti-Money Laundering Conference on May 11, 2021, starting at 9 a.m. This year’s conference again will be entirely virtual — but it will be as informative, interesting and timely as…

“Front” Seafood Businesses Allegedly Hid the Proceeds From Smuggled Shark Fins and Marijuana Distribution

Last week, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia unsealed an indictment returned in July, charging twelve defendants and two businesses with wire and mail fraud conspiracy, drug trafficking conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. The indictment describes a transnational criminal organization that allegedly began as early as 2010 and spanned multiple locations including, Georgia, District of Columbia, California, Florida, Michigan, Arizona, Hong Kong, Mexico, and Canada. The indictment accuses the defendants of submitting false applications for import/export licenses to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, and using two seafood businesses and dozens of bank accounts to hide the proceeds of illegal activities.

According to the indictment, the criminal organization engaged in an international wildlife trafficking scheme involving shark finning—where a shark is caught at sea, its fins are removed, and the remainder of the living shark is discarded and left to die in the ocean. According to the indictment, shark finning supports the demand for shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy. Shark finning is among many illegal wildlife trade practices.
Continue Reading  DOJ and Multi-Agency Task Force Charge International Money Laundering, Drug Trafficking, and Illegal Wildlife Trade Scheme

The Border with North Korea

Indictment Again Highlights the Role of Correspondent Banking in Money Laundering

On May 28, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) unsealed a 50-page indictment against 28 North Korean and 5 Chinese bankers accused of using more than 250 front companies to obscure $2.5 billion in illicit financial dealings (“the Indictment”). The complex and far-flung scheme purportedly involved covert branches of North Korea’s state-owned Foreign Trade Bank (“FTB”)—all opened in foreign countries in an attempt to access the U.S. financial system, and to circumvent sanctions intended to guard against threats to national security, foreign policy, and the U.S. economy. The Indictment charges the individuals with conspiring to launder money, violations of the “international” prong of the money laundering statute (about which we have blogged), bank fraud, and violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Although the Indictment is interesting standing alone, it also represents the latest in a series of enforcement actions involving North Korea and the U.S. financial system.
Continue Reading  28 North Korean and 5 Chinese Bankers Accused of a $2.5 Billion Laundering Scheme

The District of Connecticut recently vacated a defendant’s convictions at trial for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) — but declined to similarly vacate his related money laundering convictions.  This case provides another example of how the money laundering statutes can be a particularly powerful and flexible tool for federal prosecutors, and how they can yield convictions even if the underlying offenses do not (and perhaps are not even charged).

The case involves Lawrence Hoskins, a British citizen who had been employed by Alstom UK Limited but worked primarily for a French subsidiary of Alstom, the parent company.  Hoskins allegedly participated in a corruption scheme involving a project in Indonesia.  The bidding process for the project also involved Alstom Power Inc. (“API”), another subsidiary of Alstom that is based in Windsor, Connecticut.  According to the government, Alstom hired two consultants, Sharafi and Aulia, who bribed Indonesian officials to secure the contract for the project.

Much ink has been spilled by the media and legal commentators regarding the district court’s decision (which the government is appealing) to vacate the defendant’s FCPA convictions, on the grounds that he did not qualify as an “agent” of API for the purposes of the FCPA statute.  We will not focus on that issue here. Rather,  we of course will focus on the fact that the defendant’s convictions for money laundering, and conspiring to launder money, nonetheless survived.  Importantly for the money laundering charges, the district court did not find that there in fact was no underlying corruption scheme.  Rather, the court found that the defendant could not be convicted under the FCPA for allegedly participating in this scheme.  Thus, there was still a “specified unlawful activity,” or SUA, which produced “proceeds” to generate money laundering transactions.

The case also reminds us that, as we have blogged, it is relatively easy for the U.S. government to prosecute foreign individuals for conduct occurring almost entirely overseas, because the nexus between the offense conduct and the U.S. does not need to be robust for U.S. jurisdiction to exist.
Continue Reading  High-Profile FCPA Prosecution Reflects: Government Can Lose on Lead Corruption Charges But Still Win on Related Money Laundering Charges

Case Sheds Light on Latest Methods to Evade Detection: “Peeling” Chains

On March 2, the U.S. government sanctioned and indicted two Chinese nationals for helping North Korea launder nearly $100 million in stolen cryptocurrency. The indictment, filed in the District of Columbia, charges the defendants with conspiring to commit money laundering transactions designed to both “promote” and “conceal” the underlying crimes of wire fraud (the theft of the cryptocurrency via hacking) and operating as an unlicensed money transmitter — the latter of which is also charged in the indictment as an additional count.

According to the related and detailed civil forfeiture complaint, these funds were only a portion of those stolen in 2018 by state-sponsored hackers for North Korea from a South Korean exchange. These actions, notable in several respects, provide a glimpse at the latest methods of laundering cryptocurrency.

Anyone attempting to launder illicit cryptocurrency faces at least two big challenges. First, due to rigid know-your-customer rules, one cannot simply deposit large amounts of funds at an exchange without raising red flags. Second, because all cryptocurrency transactions are recorded on a blockchain, they can be traced.

To clear these hurdles, the complaint alleges that North Korean hackers used “peeling chains.” In a peeling chain, a single address begins with a relatively large amount of cryptocurrency. A smaller amount is then “peeled” off this larger amount, creating a transaction in which a small amount is transferred to one address, and the remainder is transferred to a one-time change address. This process is repeated – potentially hundreds or thousands of times – until the larger amount is pared down, at which point the amount remaining in the address might be aggregated with other such addresses to again yield a large amount in a single address, and the peeling process goes on.
Continue Reading  Two Chinese Nationals Charged with Money Laundering Over $100 Million in Cryptocurrency for North Korea