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Razzlekhan spits bars before going behind bars
Convicted money launderer Heather Morgan has released a bizarre rap video as her alter ego “Razzlekhan” just days before starting her 18-month prison stint for her role in the infamous Bitfinex hack.
In a self-described “sexy” but “cringe” music video on Jan. 10 titled Razzlekhan vs The United States, Morgan appeared in front of a government building wearing fishnet tights and bondage gear and referenced her recent legal troubles, criticized the financial system and asked Elon Musk to save her.
“Weird enough to catch a case, they think I’m from outer space,” Morgan raps in the opening lines of the song while clearly wearing an ankle monitor.
“This ain’t no free country, it running on money; capitalists chummy, old white men hella grumpy,” another part of the track says before pleading for the world’s richest man to save her.
“Old money, gold dusty; save me Elon Musky.”A Dec. 11 court filing recommends Morgan should head to the low-security FCI Danbury prison in Connecticut on Jan. 24 at the earliest. However, the Bureau of Prisons will make the final call on her report date.
Morgan and her husband, Ilya Lichtenstein — who will also spend five years behind bars — were arrested in February 2022 for laundering nearly 120,000 Bitcoin stolen from crypto exchange Bitfinex in August 2016.
The 119,756 Bitcoin Lichtenstein stole was worth around $70 million at the time but has since increased to $11.2 billion. It was worth $3.6 billion when US authorities recovered the stolen funds — making it the largest financial seizure in US history.
Lichtenstein orchestrated the hack, while Morgan played a key role in laundering the stolen funds, US prosecutors said.
It comes after Morgan’s and Lichtenstein’s case was highly publicized with Netflix’s documentary on their case titled The Biggest Heist Ever released last month, which Morgan described as “totally inaccurate.”
FDIC’s Hill decries ‘Choke Point-like tactics,’ wants ‘new direction’
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s vice chair, Travis Hill, has criticized the “debanking” of crypto firms and has shared his vision for the agency.
Hill, a candidate to replace Martin J. Gruenberg as FDIC Chair on Jan. 20, said in a Jan. 10 speech he would push the banking regulator in a “new direction” that would include banking politically disfavored individuals and businesses.
He noted that many digital asset businesses have lost access to their bank accounts “without explanation” — similar to how firearm dealers and high-risk lenders were ousted under the original Operation Choke Point in 2013.
Hill said the FDIC had been going against its “longstanding goal” by increasing — not decreasing — the number of people and businesses unbanked.
Source: Nic Carter
“Efforts to debank law-abiding customers are unacceptable, regulators must work to end it, and there is no place at the FDIC for anyone who has pushed — explicitly or implicitly — banks to stop serving law-abiding customers,” he said.
Hill added that “essential first steps” for the FDIC would be to adopt a new approach to crypto and put “an end to any and all Choke Point-like tactics.”
US crypto advocates have long claimed the country’s regulators have attempted to cut the industry off from the traditional banking system, which has been dubbed “Operation Chokepoint 2.0.”
CFTC’s enforcement boss hits the exit
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Jan. 10 said that its division of enforcement Director Ian McGinley will depart the agency on Jan. 17 — days before Donald Trump will take office on Jan. 20.
McGinley joined the CFTC in February 2023, a few weeks before it sued Binance and founder Changpeng Zhao for violating commodities laws.
He also oversaw the wrap-up to the agency’s successful $12.7 billion case against FTX and Alameda Research and lead the CFTC’s lawsuits against other crypto entities, including KuCoin.
Related: Singapore blocks access to Polymarket over unlicensed gambling concerns
In its statement, the CFTC said McGinley’s tenure was defined by “establishing the CFTC as a premier law enforcement agency for digital asset enforcement,” among other achievements.
It comes as Trump, who will be inaugurated as president on Jan. 20, has promised to ease regulatory enforcement against the crypto space.
CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam is also set to depart, and it was reported Trump is eyeing the pro-crypto CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger as a leading choice to chair the agency.
Other news
Decentralized exchange Mango Markets is winding down its operations by Jan. 11 after a $700,000 settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last September. It called on users to “close their positions” after members of Mango’s decentralized autonomous organization unanimously voted to close down the exchange.
New York Attorney General Letitia James initiated legal action to recover more than $2 million in crypto swindled from victims who were duped into buying crypto under the false promise of securing remote work opportunities.
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