Alleged crypto launderer goes viral after people discover her rap videos

A lady behind what the Division of Justice referred to as its “largest monetary seizure ever” has captured the eye of the web — however not as a result of she allegedly tried to launder billions in stolen bitcoin.

Heather Morgan and her husband, Ilya Lichtenstein, have been arrested Tuesday for allegedly conspiring to launder billions of {dollars} price of bitcoin stolen throughout a 2016 hack concentrating on the digital cryptocurrency alternate Bitfinex, the DOJ mentioned.

It didn’t take lengthy after information broke of Morgan’s arrest for individuals to seek out her sizable on-line footprint. Morgan has since gone viral for her in depth social media presence, together with her rap songs on YouTube and Spotify and her articles for Forbes.

Now, Morgan’s on-line presence has turn into as a lot of a spectacle as her alleged heist.

Morgan glided by the rapper title ‘Razzlekhan’

In keeping with courtroom paperwork, Lichtenstein and Morgan are alleged to have conspired to launder the proceeds of 119,754 bitcoins that have been stolen from a platform referred to as Bitfinex after a hacker breached Bitfinex’s methods and initiated greater than 2,000 unauthorized transactions.

DOJ paperwork listing “Razzlekhan” as one in all her aliases — which can also be the title she used on her social media accounts, lots of which she used to share her music.

On her web site touchdown web page, the outline reads: “The notorious Crocodile of Wall Road strikes once more! Extra fearless and extra shameless than ever earlier than, she’s taking over everybody from huge software program corporations to healthcare to finance bros.”

She wrote that Razzlekhan is “like Genghis Khan, however with extra pizzazz.” 

In a now-private YouTube video titled “Rap Anthem for Misfits & Weirdos: Versace Bedouin Music Video,” Morgan describes herself as a “rapper, an economist, a journalist, a author, a CEO, and a grimy, soiled, soiled ho.”

Her YouTube channel, Razzlekhan, included vlog-style movies along with rap music movies. In a single, she confirmed off her “eyeball haul” of prosthetic eyes, which she mentioned she deliberate to make use of for crafts. In a TikTok video posted in April 2021, she requested viewers for recommendation on supergluing a prosthetic eyeball onto a classic brooch.

She additionally had a few of her music on Spotify.

Makes an attempt to succeed in her through her varied accounts have been unsuccessful. An lawyer for Morgan didn’t instantly reply to NBC Information’ request for remark.

Since going viral for her rap profession earlier this week, the entire movies on her YouTube channel have been made non-public apart from a livestream of a Black Lives Matter protest in New York.

Her TikTok accounts nonetheless look like lively

Morgan’s obvious TikTok accounts, heatherreyhan and realrazzlekhan, seem to nonetheless be lively.

On the TikTok account heatherreyhan, Morgan boasted about constructing a “multimillion greenback enterprise” at 23-years-old with “zero exterior funding and no connections.” She stopped posting movies on the account after Jan. 7, 2021.

The account realrazzlekhan appeared extra lively.

In a latest video, Morgan confirmed viewers her assortment of “Razzle nails,” layers of nail polish which have peeled off her manicure within the form of a fingernail. She mentioned she was saving them for an artwork undertaking.

On TikTok, Morgan referred to herself as a “$tempo Pimp” and sometimes posted movies of her ft along with movies of freestyle raps. In a video posted in July 2020, she makes “toe rings” out of gummy Lifesavers, stretching the candies over every toe. In later movies, she demonstrated how she makes use of chopsticks with ft.

Since information of her arrest broke, TikTok customers have flooded Morgan’s movies with feedback.

On a video — during which Morgan paperwork her brunch and says she is making a “commentary on social media and the way [expletive] superficial and consumerist our society is” — viewers identified the irony of her assertion.

“What are you utilizing the cash for…? Consumerism?” one commenter mentioned.

“How superficial our society is?” one other replied. “You’re actually pretending you earned the meals you might be consuming.”

Morgan wrote posts like, ‘How you can turn into a Profitable YouTuber in 2021’

Along with regularly posting on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram (the latter of which was additionally made non-public), Morgan was a frequent Forbes and Inc. contributor.

Her Forbes bio describers her as an “skilled in persuasion, social engineering and recreation idea.”

She regularly coated web tradition, writing essays about artists whose music went viral on TikTok, like Ashnikko and The Child LAROI. She additionally wrote a publish titled “How you can Grow to be A Profitable YouTuber in 2021,” profiling vogue creator Bestdressed.

In an article interviewing specialists on how enterprise homeowners may defend themselves from cybercriminals, Morgan wrote, “The aged are significantly susceptible to those crimes, however the mixture of weak cybersecurity and the treasure trove of private data that’s accessible on the darknet makes anybody a possible sufferer.”

Morgan and Lichtenstein allegedly used “quite a few refined cash laundering strategies,” the DOJ mentioned, reminiscent of utilizing pretend identities to make accounts, automating transactions utilizing software program and depositing the stolen funds into quite a lot of foreign money alternate accounts and “darknet markets” earlier than withdrawing them, which “obfuscates the path of the transaction historical past.”

In addition they allegedly transformed the bitcoin to different varieties of cryptocurrency and used enterprise accounts based mostly within the U.S. to “legitimize their banking exercise.”

“Cryptocurrency and the digital foreign money exchanges buying and selling in it comprise an increasing a part of the U.S. monetary system, however digital foreign money heists executed by complicated cash laundering schemes may undermine confidence in cryptocurrency,” U.S. Lawyer Matthew Graves within the DOJ announcement.

The couple faces as much as 20 years of jail time for conspiracy to commit cash laundering, and as much as 5 years for conspiracy to defraud the USA.

The DOJ mentioned there will probably be a courtroom course of to assert and request return of any bitcoin stolen within the heist.