Amazon MGM Studios has begun work on a film based on the couple who laundered Bitcoin worth billions of dollars in connection with the Bitfinex breach in 2016, according to reports.
The Amazon production studio is developing Razzlekhan, a movie that centers on the activities of Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan and how they laundered money from Bitfinex, according to a story published on January 26 by Deadline.
According to reports, the script will draw inspiration from a 2022 New York Times piece that referred to the couple as “Bitcoin’s Bonnie and Clyde.”
Prosecutors claim that after Bitfinex was hacked in August 2016, with around 119,754 BTC taken, Lichtenstein and Morgan laundered over 94,643 BTC of the proceeds “in a series of small, complex transactions across multiple accounts and platforms.”
In February 2022, the couple was taken into custody by US authorities. When they were apprehended, Bitcoin had a value of over $3 billion, but it had only been valued at about $54 million at the time of the breach.
In August 2023, Morgan entered a guilty plea to both conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to commit money laundering, as part of an agreement with prosecutors.
Lichtenstein also entered a guilty plea. As an “irreverent comedic rapper,” Morgan went under the moniker Razzlekhan, which was the movie’s suggested title.
Several other studios have chosen to cover personalities in the crypto world through documentaries, despite the Lichtenstein and Morgan film seemingly taking a dramatic approach to the couple’s existence.
Following the historic cyberattack, the Bitfinex exchange was able to recover 6.9 Bitcoin Cash and $312,219 in cash in July 2023.
