Bitcoin,
the only money that doesn't have slaveholders on it.
One of the advantages of cryptocurrency
was supposed to be how it was secure from theft.
And I would explain why, but instead,
just ask that one dude at the next party you go to.
He'll be very happy to go into great detail.
But despite the super security of crypto,
there have, unfortunately,
been some major crypto heists over the years.
And the same technology that makes it hard to steal
also makes the perpetrators extremely hard to catch.
Hard but not impossible.
NEWSWOMAN: This morning, the Justice Department
announcing the largest single seizure of funds
in the department's history.
Investigators say hackers broke into an online currency exchange
back in 2016, stealing 120,000 Bitcoin,
which, at the time, was worth $71 million.
But today, it's worth a staggering $4.5 billion.
Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan,
are charged with laundering Bitcoin
tied to the hack using thousands of small transitions
and accounts set up with fake IDs.
Holy shit. Four and a half billion dollars
in stolen Bitcoin.
This is huge.
You realize... You realize there's 330 million people
in the United States,
and that's $4.5 billion.
So that means you could give each person in the U.S.
te-ten...
♪ ♪
If you... Five...
You could give everyone some money.
And by the way, you might think
that everyone who uses Bitcoin would be happy
that the police were able to track down the stolen crypto,
but it turns out no.
Turns out a lot of the crypto community
actually took this as bad news
because cryptocurrency is supposed to be anonymous.
And if the FBI can trace Bitcoin
to someone who might have stolen it,
what's to stop them from tracking innocent people
who are just using Bitcoin
to buy heroin and automatic weapons?
This is scary stuff.
But where some people see a problem,
I like to see opportunities.
Which is why, my friends,
I've created a new form of currency
that is totally anonymous and completely untraceable.
And it comes
with just a little bit of cocaine on it.
(sniffs) So, if you're interested,
I'm gonna be selling these on my website for $50 each.
Think it's a steal.
Now, you're probably wondering
who are the criminal geniuses who are part
of one of the biggest financial crimes in history?
Well, you know when they say you should never meet your heroes?
Yeah. This is why.
NEWSWOMAN: Lichtenstein, a U.S. and Russian citizen
is described in a profile online as a tech entrepreneur.
And according to Morgan's social media profiles,
she's a serial entrepreneur and a part-time rapper.
In one of her songs, Morgan calls herself
"the infamous crocodile of Wall Street."
♪ I'm many things ♪
♪ A rapper, an economist ♪
♪ A journalist, a writer, a CEO. ♪
I know what you're thinking.
The Bitcoin crimes are nothing
compared to calling this shit rap.
What was that? ♪ A rapper ♪
♪ An economist, a jour... ♪
Yo, rap is not just, like, saying wo... (sighs)
What is that?
And, also, even if you are a rapper,
you know it's never a good sign for your rap career
when you're listing all your other jobs in a song.
You're just a rapper. This person's running around, like,
♪ Yo, yo, yo, this definitely doesn't pay the bills ♪
♪ I have to do a bunch of other things ♪
♪ 'Cause, as you can tell, no one would pay for this. ♪
And this wasn't a once-off crime, by the way.
The rap video, not-not the money.
This woman, it turns out, has been spitting wet fire
everywhere that she's been given a chance.
Please, Jesus, I beg you, no mo.
Like, what... What is she...
Which rap is she listening to
that she thought that that was a reference for rap?
That's what I want to know.
Like, where was she listening to rap and she's like,
"I could do that.
I'm gonna go and do the exact same thing."
♪ No, no, yo-yo! ♪
Imagine if you were sitting next to her in a room,
what are you thinking is-- "Are you okay in there?!"
(chuckling)
Here's a tip-- kids, if you want to look cool
while doing your rap,
don't read your lyrics off to the side.
Practice and learn the thing.
'Cause, otherwise, it sort of eliminates your swag.
The whole time, she's, like, doing this
to catch the next... rhyme
that's ditto.
You can't do that. No rapper would have succeed--
Can you imagine if Tupac was reading his rhymes off
on the side? ♪ You claim to be a player ♪
♪ But I f... just... screw ♪ S-Sorry, guys.
♪ Screwed your wife, we bust on the Bad... ♪
Can we get a-- can we get a different font?
If you have four-- five-- $4.5 billion,
why are you on TikTok? What are you doing on TikTok?
Huh? The whole point of being on TikTok is to get followers
so that you can get paid so you can be rich enough
so you don't have to be on TikTok anymore.
No one wants to be on TikTok.
You think Shaq is dancing for fun?
That man has danced-- Look at the pain in his eyes!
They're coming for his family.
I'll never understand how people are smart enough
to commit the biggest crimes but then dumb enough
to never get away with it. I mean...
like... (sighs)
there's a better way to do this crime.
And I'm not trying to give anyone advice
on how to do crime.
Please, I'm not giving advice.
But here's the thing.
If you steal crypto, don't just keep it all in one place, yo.
What you got to do is break it up into multiple wallets.
You keep those wallets offline in separate drives, right?
Then you make sure that your keys are not in the cloud
or written down anywhere.
Then you move to a country that doesn't have
any extradition laws to the U.S.
Then you launder the money slowly
using other crypto or NFTs.
And, again, I'm not giving advice on doing crime.
♪ This has been Trevor's Advice on Doing Crime. ♪