russian national ilya lichtenstein and his wife heather morgan are accused of attempting to launder stolen bitcoin. the cryptocurrency was stolen in 2016 when the virtual currrrenc exchange was hacked. prosecutors say $4.5 billion worth of bitcoin was stolen. the couple is not charged with carrying out the hack. the justice department says it has seized more than $3.5 billion in stolen cryptocurrency -- the largest financial seizure in the department's history. >>> and there are mixed signals this morning in the military standoff between russia and ukraine. french president emmanuel macron met with his russian counterpart vladimir putin this week. he said putin agreed not to further escalate the crisis in ukraine, but the kremlin denies any deal was made. charlie d'agata reports on the ramping up of military drills. >> reporter: combat-ready british tanks on the war path testing nato ground troops in estonia in a simulated battle against an imaginary enemy. but in a country that borders russia and was once a former verywith tsions mountingmy is in ukraineishreawinter eises le -fiedvantage,

from the department of justice, these are the to get people that they arrested and charged. ilya lichtenstein, he's 34 years old and his wife had their morgan. 31 were both arrested without incident tuesday morning and manhattan that department said they have promoting themselves on social media as entrepreneurs, with deep knowledge of tech and a love of travel. they are scheduled to make their initial appearance on tuesday afternoon. that happened earlier this week. they made bail it was, i think we're set at $100000000.00 in the u. s. i think you just have to come up with 10 percent of the money. but of course in on have a huge social media profile, there is loads of a tick, tock, sort of wrap videos that are cringe worthy, and that's all out there for the world to see. but you know, we started with this is the big white space and this is a mean lord space and this is a they fit in right with the mean, oh, sphere. you have a put and pump it. and you have these, you know, alleged hackers are doing crazy cringe dances on tick tock. right? you have, you have the michael sailor jack dorsey, the

ilya lichtenstein and his wife heather morgan were charged with laundering bit con using thousands of small transitions and accounts with fake i.d. >> trevor: holy shit, four and a half billion dollars in stolen bitcoin. this is huge. you realize, you realize that 330 million people in the united states. and that is 4.5 billion dollars. so that means you could give each person in the u.s.-- u.s.-- $10-- if you-- 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 uns it out no, it turns out a lot of the crypto community took this as bad news because crypto currency is supposed to be anonymous. and if the fbi can trace bitcoin to someone who might have stolen it t what is to stop them from tracking innocent people who are just using bitcoin to buy heroin and automatic weapons, this scary stuff. but where some people see a problem, i like it to see opportunity. which is why, my friends, i have created a new form of currency that is totally anonymous and complete

the husband and wife ilya lichtenstein and heather morgan are charged with conspiring to launder nearlyn bitcoin. $4 billion in bitcoin. they're accused of using a network of internet aliases and digital wallets to siphon and hide the currency. joining me now is jake ward. this is the absolute wildest story i've seen in a long time. >> it is. as this couple was living a vivid and public life, it turned out, prosecutors say, they were sitting on billions. >> reporter: a day after celebrities like lebron james and larry david appeared in cryptocurrency commercials during the super bowl -- >> call your own shots. >> reporter: -- this new york duo, dubbed the crypto couple, appeared in court, charged with laundering billions in bitcoin. 34-year-old ilya lichetenstein and 31 heather morgan are tech entrepreneurs. lichtenstein describes himself as an occasional magician and is the founder of a digital wallet company designed to stop fraud and terrorism. morgan, who once wrote that strong personal branding is essential as a founder, dispensed advice on tiktok. >> i'm going to tell you my secre

. ♪ ilya lichtenstein .. your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer.tant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. i'm ben affleck andre i want to thank you for joining me and supporting paralyzed veterans of america. i joined the navy to serve my country as a navy seal. i wanted to protect the people i love and the country i love. being a seal gave me so many things, but i gave something too. while parachuting with my platoon, my parachute didn't open. i broke my neck. it left me paralyzed. i realized that everything i had planned for was now gone. paralyzed veterans of america was by my side from that moment on. since 1946, paralyzed veterans of america has kept a promise to our wounded veterans. we will never leave a fallen comrade behind. our vets need you. join me with your support. please call or go online now to pva hero.org. your gift of only $19 a month - just 63 cents a day, will provide the life-saving help our paralyzed heroes need now. with your monthly support, you're honoring the sacrifice our wounded vet

officials said 34-year-old ilya lichtenstein and his wife, 31-year-old heather morgan were taken intoork the initial theft came back in 2016, when an unknown hacker took 119,754 bitcoin from the virtual currency change. today's indictment does not charge lichtenstein and morgan with hacking, however. and officials declined to say what they know about who stole the funds in the first place now, morgan refers to herself online as a serial entrepreneur and as a surrealist rapper in one of her videos online, she calls herself the crocodile of wall street. and guys, we're still waiting for the couple to make their initial court appearance in manhattan today. as soon as we have that, we're bring those details to you as well >> i wonder if this will be inspiration for another surreal rap or whatever she does, eamon. i guess we'll find out >> the videos are quite something, if you have a chance to check them out. all available online >> you're a good reporter. i knew you looked at them. thank you, eamon >> did my research >> mike, really interesting session. we got a lot of big earnings tomor

crocodile of wall street officials said 31-year-old heather morgan and her 34-year-old husband ilya lichtensteinithout incident yesterday on money laundering and conspiracy charges. online morgan identified herself as a serious artist. she posted herself rapping on wall street and calling herself a real risk taker and badass money maker. she contributed to forbes.com in 2020 they took stolen bitcoin the couple allegedly used the money laundering the bitcoin to buy gold, nfts and others. it's a whopping $3.6 billion. >> this is the largest seizure of cryptocurrency ever by u.s. law enforcement. it's also the department's largest single financial seizure in its history. >> but the government stopped short of alleging that the pair actually hacked the virtual currency exchange in the first place back in 2016 there's a possibility there's more to this story now in court late yesterday, a defense attorney called the charges thin and overblown and suggested that billions of dollars had not been laundered in this kasem prosecutors argue the couple should be denied bail as flight risks who might be able

amount of cryptocurrency ever, more than $3.6 billion worth of bitcoin charging 34-year-old ilya "dutch" lichtensteinan, 31, with money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to defraud the united states. >> never forget, we're the most original. >> reporter: in her linkedin profile morgan describes herself as a serial entrepreneur, prolific writer and surrealist artist/rapper. her stage name razzlekhan. ♪ according to the complaint lichtenstein is a u.s. and russian citizen and tech entrepreneur. the couple appearing on this virtual workshop for morgan's sales consulting company sales folk. >> heather, thanks for having me. >> you're welcome. thanks for talking with us today. >> reporter: the two are accused of using thousands of small complex transactions and accounts set up with fictitious identities to launder the funds. prosecutors say after a 2016 hack in hong kong a cyberthief transferred 120,000 bitcoin to a virtual wallet controlled by lichtenstein. at the time, the stolen funds were valued around $71 million. but today they're worth more than $4.5 billion as bitcoin's value has soared. and th