So this guy is rich. No, no, he's like really rich. So his name's Dutch, and one day, I'm not sure why, Dutch decides to exploit a security flaw and hack a cryptocurrency exchange.
He ends up stealing over 119,000 Bitcoin, which is worth about $72 million, and this heist is a huge deal. Like, it immediately makes the trading price of Bitcoin drop 20% overnight. Of course, this gets the attention of the IRS.
So we don't think about this, but the IRS actually has agents—like, criminal investigation agents, and they carry pew pews, and they arrest people and the whole thing. So the IRS Criminal Investigation Unit starts tracing this crypto to see if they can figure out who stole it. Now, Dutch knows he can't go on a big spending spree; it'll tip them off.
So he just quietly moves the Bitcoin to a different platform on the dark web, and then he doesn't touch it. He just waits. About a year or two goes by, and the $72 million in Bitcoin is still sitting there.
So he decides it's time to launder it, and he's going to enlist his wife to help him. Now, his wife is this woman who we'll call Razzle. So Razzle and Dutch get to work, and they split the Bitcoin up into tiny amounts and move it to thousands of different wallets using a bunch of different fake identities.
They create a fake company with fake employees, and the whole thing gets really elaborate. But here's what's crazy: during all this, the value of crypto keeps rising, and over the next few years, the $72 million in Bitcoin becomes worth over $8. 3 billion, making Dutch's hack the biggest heist in U.
S. history. Now, compared to the amount of money they had stolen, Dutch and Razzle actually weren't spending a big chunk of it.
Like, they took some nice trips, and they bought some gold coins and some NFTs, but that's really about it. But here's what they did do: they start publicly referring to themselves as entrepreneurs and crypto investors, and Razzle starts getting more and more into social media. She starts putting herself online a lot more—you upet what my upset—and she eventually starts a rap career.
And I'm not going to lie: her rap sucks. "Spirit of a revolutionary, power of a dictator, love to be contrary, but I'm fly like a gator. More they hate, more I work, everybody say 'L,' but all they do is sh.
" So Razzle starts using some of this money to fund her music videos. Now, eventually, Razzle and Dutch get married, and then they take a month-long trip to Ukraine because they allegedly plan to flee there. Their plan is if they ever get caught with the crypto, Ukraine doesn't actually extradite to the U.
S. , so they're safe there. So they get fake Ukrainian passports, SIM cards, bank accounts, and set this whole thing up as if they're going to flee to Ukraine.
Honestly, it seems like it might work; they're ultimately going to get away with stealing $8. 3 billion in Bitcoin—until one day, Razzle buys a Walmart gift card, and that gift card is going to be their downfall. So one of the ways Razzle and Dutch laundered the Bitcoin was that they would transfer it to a platform that would then exchange it for prepaid gift cards.
One of those cards is this $500 gift card to Walmart. When Razzle uses that gift card, her purchases end up being linked to Dutch's IP address. Now, the IRS, who has been watching them for a while, is able to link Dutch's IP address to a cloud service account that's also linked to Dutch.
The IRS is then able to decrypt a file on the account that will eventually lead them to a bunch of the stolen crypto. Not only that, the things that Razzle bought using that Walmart gift card also end up being delivered to Dutch in her apartment. So now the IRS has their home address.
So the IRS agents get a warrant, and they raid their apartment. They find over $440,000 in cash, over 50 computers and tablets, a bunch of burner phones, and jump drives. Ultimately, through all that, they're able to seize most of the stolen Bitcoin.
So they arrest Dutch and Razzle. Here's his mug shot; here's hers. They both take a plea deal, and Dutch is looking at a maximum of 20 years in prison while Razzle's looking at a maximum of 5 years in prison.
Wow! Shout out to Razzle's rap career!
