The Netflix documentary, Biggest Heist Ever, shined a light on the wild and outrageous crimes of Ilya and Heather, a modern day Bonnie and Clyde, with spectacular and unbelievable reveals throughout. Netflix has become a central hub for true crime, crime documentaries, and crime genre shows, with plenty of new projects being released every month. While these shows cover a wide range of bizarre and unusual cases, some are wilder than others.
Earlier in 2024, Netflix’s The Man With 1000 Kids revealed shocking truths about a man who was able to obscure his identity and keep his donation history private, but the latest Netflix true-crime documentary reveals a very different story. When two tech enthusiasts leave the glitz and glamour of Silicon Valley for the high life in New York City, there is a story to be told, and Biggest Heist Ever does a great job of digging into the details.
10 Police Watched The Stolen Money Being Spent
Biggest Heist Ever tells the story of Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, a young couple who were at the center of possibly the most valuable heist. This modern day Bonnie and Clyde were able to steal $72 million dollars worth of Bitcoin back in 2016, which equates to a current valuation of approximately $4.5 billion thanks to Bitcoins rapid growth. But one of the unique features of a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is the fact that it exists on the public blockchain.
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In layman’s terms, this means that Bitcoin is a form of currency with extreme visibility. While cash can be removed from a bank and exchanged without any other information attached, Bitcoin can only be be traded along a digital ledger, meaning its entire history can be tracked and traced with a reasonable amount of information. This means that police were actually able to see the Bitcoin’s journey from the holding company, Bitfinex, into the thief’s accounts, and then track where it was spent, but that didn’t mean the identities of the people spending it were crystal clear.
9 Heather & Ilya Left A Thriving Tech Startup
As it turns out, the actual criminals were an odd and unassuming couple who came from a tech background. Ilya and Heather lived in Silicon Valley, where both found themselves establishing successful careers in tech. Ilya founded a budding tech company that was managing to get substantial investments from big names like Mark Cuban, and he had a large team working in comfortable offices as part of that company. Heather had also been working with tech startups in various roles, and establishing herself as a notable person in the industry.
Despite all this success, the couple moved seemingly out of the blue in 2016 to New York City, leaving their careers and companies behind. Considering their success and growth, this was an odd move, and it raised eyebrows, but it wasn’t until years later when they were revealed to be the masterminds behind the Bitcoin heist that this move made any sense. But things only got stranger from this point onward.
8 Razzlekhan Was Inspired By Awkwafina
In New York, Heather appeared to step into a new role as the CEO and founder of a company called SalesFolk. This job allowed her to engage in industry and build a name for herself, while she also wrote for major publications for Forbes. Due to all of this success, Heather also began interviewing a variety of celebrities and other notable figures in the public sphere.
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At one point, Heather interviewed the up-and-coming rap music artist, Awkwafina, someone who was not afraid to break the mold, and embodied a character that allowed her to express herself more fully. It was after this interview that Heather apparently began pursuing her own career as a rapper by the name of Razzlekhan. Despite her distinct lack of talent, the lack of support or views on her music, and all the signs, Heather embraced this career fully. To the point of posting things that harmed her image as a business professional.
7 Heather Delivering Public Speech’s About Social Engineering
In the years after Heather and Ilya’s massive heist, and alongside her budding rap career, Heather was hired to speak at public events. Multiple events saw her deliver workshops about areas of her expertise, with some specifically aimed at the practice of social engineering. Social engineering is the practice of manipulating others in order to achieve an outcome that otherwise would not be reached.
However, in these workshops, it led people to ask how morally sound this practice is. From her presentation, it was clear to people that the practice was not necessarily ethical. Within these speaking engagements, Heather also said things that hinted at her moral ambiguity, and would later be viewed as clear signs pointing back to her exploiting Bitfinex and the users that they scammed millions of dollars away from. Seeing Heather confidently speak out about topics that were instrumental in her criminal activity was a jaw-dropping moment.
6 Ilya’s Father Was Also A Skilled Hacker
As the case was being built against Ilya and Heather, people with loose links to the couple and their wider circle began to get involved. With the crime being so public, and stolen Bitcoin being easily traced through the blockchain, there were a lot of interested parties following along at home. One such individual was a man who previously led a hacker group back in 2005, and came into contact with a mysterious expert hacker known as Deuce.
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Years later, Deuce was revealed to be none other than the father of Ilya, which suggested that he could have been the expert hacker who helped the young couple pull off their crime. Of course, it is also possible that Ilya was able to pull it off alone, but according to experts, Ilya’s father was more skilled and capable of this kind of operation. Despite his history, Ilya’s father has not been a central part of the investigation or trial.
5 The Bag Labeled Burner Phones And Other Evidence
Despite being the active participants and beneficiaries of the biggest heist in history, Ilya and Heather were lacking the finesse or skill of a more experienced criminal. Where other criminals make an effort to cover their tracks, and remain ambiguous and hidden from the public eye, there was no effort to hide made by Ilya and Heather. In fact, the opposite was true, with Heather posting hundreds of videos to social media, trying to launch a rap career, and speaking at public events. Ilya appears to have been more hidden from the public eye, but this appears to be more down to the fact that he was introverted than hiding.
Despite this, the couple did have criminal paraphernalia in their New York apartment. When the FBI got a warrant and raided their home, they found money in various currencies, fake passports, and even burner phones. Helpfully, the burner phones also came pre-bagged, with a label that read “burner phones,” just in case there could be any confusion for the arresting officers. This is a bizarre way to preserve phones intended to be obscured and then disposed of in order to avoid detection.
4 Continuing To Post Incriminating Social Posts After Being Raided By The FBI
Now, for most people who steal billions of dollars, evade detection for a long period of time, and then finally have the police raid their home and find several pieces of evidence, it’s likely that they will be fearful and cautious in how they proceed. They could find themselves locked in prison soon, and so it would make sense to spend some money and try to find some peace, but it would be odd to continue as if nothing happened.
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However, that is exactly what Ilya and Heather did. Days after their home was raided, the couple was back to posting on social media. These posts included their usual life updates, odd rants, and other foolish behavior indicative of most harmless social media influencers, but Heather and Ilya were not quite so harmless. And then, a little over a month later, Heather posted something about injustice, scams, and not doing the right thing, which was awfully ironic for the person who was in the process of being caught for scamming people out of money.
3 Bitfinex May Be The Primary Beneficiary Of The Seized Bitcoin
Going back to the beginning, the company which Ilya and Heather were able to hack and steal millions of dollars worth of bitcoin from is called Bitfinex. At the time, users were unfortunate to have lost their assets which were invested with the company, but over the coming months, these assets increased in value exponentially. The boom of bitcoin meant that what was lost at the point of the hack was just a fraction of the value later on.
In light of the theft, Bitfinex sought to make the users whole, and in order to do this, they paid them a portion of the value of their investment. However, this means that Bitfinex believes it has the rights and ownership of the stolen bitcoins, which would now be worth hundreds of times the value they originally had. As a result, Bitfinex could stand to be the biggest winner with the return of the assets, having made a huge profit, and buying out all the previous owners against their will.
2 Heather Was Released From Prison Due To Health Conditions
While it is difficult to say for certain who was responsible for what parts of the crime in the case of Ilya and Heather, it’s clear that both partners were spending this money, and in some ways flaunting their actions in the public sphere. Heather appears to have been fully cognizant of their criminal acts, and should at least share the responsibility and punishment from the crime. Despite this balance of guilt, Ilya was released from her sentence, and eventually only given 18 months of supervised release as a punishment.
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While outside the confines of prison, Heather has continued to work in the space of cryptocurrency, web3 security, and tech. This is incredibly ironic and dubious, considering her past. However, thanks to some underlying health conditions, Heather has essentially been able to continue living life, progressing, and interacting in a public capacity.
1 A Billion Dollars Worth Of Bitcoin Is Still Unaccounted For
The FBI finally gained access to the hefty sum of billions of dollars after getting access to files from Ilya and Heather. This resulted in their being able to transfer more than $3 billion worth of bitcoin into government crypto wallets. While this means these funds can be returned and are no longer at the disposal of Ilya and Heather, there remains another billion that is unaccounted for.
As before, these funds can still be publicly tracked on the blockchain. It’s true that much of it could have been laundered through darkweb services that take and randomly reallocate these funds, but its a lot of money to simply disappear. Despite Heather and Ilya being caught, and their crimes exposed, they still manage to walk away from the Biggest Heist Ever, with more of those stolen goods than has ever been procured in a single criminal encounter before, with the truth about that fortune remaining unknown.
Biggest Heist Ever, directed by Chris Smith, is a documentary exploring the infamous individuals dubbed the Bitcoin Bonnie and Clyde. The film delves into the unprecedented and bizarre events surrounding the most lucrative heist in history, revealing the complex web of cybercrime and fraud.
- Director
- Chris Smith
- Release Date
- December 6, 2024
