A husband and wife accused of laundering billions of dollars in bitcoin linked to the 2016 Bitfinex hack have entered into a plea agreement with authorities in the United States.

Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan are scheduled to appear for an arraignment and hearing on August 3 as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, according to records filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on July 21. The pair were charged with money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to defraud the United States, and are expected to have digital assets attached to the case confiscated.

Following the August 2016 hack of crypto exchange Bitfinex, in which approximately 119,754 bitcoin (BTC) were stolen, Lichtenstein and Morgan allegedly laundered more than 94,643 BTC “in a series of small, complex transactions across multiple accounts and platforms”. Authorities arrested the two in New York in February 2022 and confiscated the BTC — worth about $54 million at the time of the hack, but worth $3.6 billion at the time of publication.

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At the time of Lichtenstein and Morgan’s arrests, the laundered bitcoins represented the largest financial seizure ever made by the US Department of Justice. Individuals have periodically transferred small amounts of BTC linked to the hack, but only a small amount has been returned to Bitfinex from the authorities in an effort to restore victims’ funds.

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