Hollywood ready to invest in story of alleged ‘bitcoin bandit’ Heather Morgan

Heather Morgan, one-half of the now notorious Bitcoin Bonnie and Clyde — the eccentric Manhattan couple arrested Feb. 8 for allegedly making an attempt to launder $3.6 billion in stolen cryptocurrency — is holed up in a $1.5 million FiDi two-bedroom. However she may wish to reply her telephones, as a result of Hollywood is asking. (As of publication, her voicemail was full.)

Shifting on the warp velocity of crypto valuation itself, her outrageous story has, in simply two weeks, impressed two documentaries and a scripted TV sequence.

“Lots of people have been making an attempt to provide you with a method to inform a narrative about crypto and the world we reside in at this time,” mentioned Nick Bilton, who’s co-executive-producing a Netflix documentary with Chris Smith (greatest identified for his doc, “Fyre: The Best Get together That By no means Occurred“) signed on to direct. “It’s onerous to inform it by means of expertise. You wish to inform it by means of human characters. Heather and Ilya are essentially the most human.”

A part of the story’s attraction is how unlikely they appeared for a significant heist — but in addition how actually odd Morgan, who rapped beneath the identify Razzlekhan, appears.

The 31-year-old’s detention memo describes her spitting no less than one verse that now appears uncannily revelatory: “Spear phish your password / Have all of your funds transferred.”

“I believe she is damaged,” Bilton mentioned of Morgan, who identifies as a journalist, entrepreneur and worldwide economist. “In highschool she was made enjoyable of for her voice. She did the rap stuff as a manner of coping with her personal nervousness and insecurity. Placing apart the crime, I believe she had a tough go of it. She tried actually onerous to slot in … [and] was most likely overcompensating,”

Forbes Leisure, in collaboration with Leisure One, may even produce a doc about Morgan and her husband, Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein, 34, primarily based on the publication’s personal reporting, in addition to a scripted TV sequence.

Between 2017 and 2021, Morgan freelanced for one in all Forbes’ female-oriented verticals, ForbesWomen. Paradoxically, on her bio there, she describes herself as “reverse-engineering black markets to consider higher methods to fight fraud and cybercrime…”

The assorted productions will goal to uncover how she and her husband ended up with no less than 95,000 bitcoin allegedly hacked from the Hong Kong trade Bitfinex in 2016, based on federal brokers. (The couple, who didn’t enter a plea, don’t face prices for masterminding the heist; a further 25,000 cash stay at massive.) By the point investigators caught up with Morgan and Lichtenstein, $2.9 million had allegedly already been laundered and the couple appeared able to mild out for Japanese Europe — full with $40,000 in money, a variety of pretend IDs and a bag labeled “burner telephones.”

Bilton mentioned that a part of his analysis will take a look at the psychological impression of sitting on all that scorching crypto — particularly in mild of the worth jacking up from $71 million in 2016 to at this time’s multi-billion-dollar whole.

“Did they [steal] a Ferrari and it become a 747? Was that demanding?” Bilton mentioned of the bitcoin. “Was that thrilling? Does it flip you right into a rapper? Think about having a sum of cash to launder that retains going up.”

Outdoors the couple’s austere condominium constructing, which was as soon as a part of a Hyatt Resort, a tenant recalled encountering Morgan — who favored hennaed palms, metallic-looking jackets and strategically torn pants — within the elevator. “I noticed her dressing in another way from different individuals right here,” the neighbor mentioned, ” and probably not saying a lot.”

“She had a definite vogue model, however they had been completely unassuming,” added a second resident who lives on the thirty third ground, similar because the pair.

“Nothing about how they current on-line or what has been mentioned about them feels according to individuals who would be capable of [launder billions of dollars in cryptocurrency],” Tucker Tooley, who will produce the Forbes/Leisure One scripted mission, advised The Put up of Morgan and Lichtenstein. “In the event you noticed them in a vacuum, you wouldn’t assume they might do one thing like this.”

Bilton believes that there’s rather more to the 2 than has to date been revealed. “I really feel that there was a shotgun rush to guage and make enjoyable of them,” he advised The Put up. “Pull again the layers and also you see that Heather is a candy individual. To me, it looks like a extra human story [that goes beyond] making enjoyable of her rap and making enjoyable of him consuming cat meals.”

Based on Rolling Stone, Lichtenstein was seen on Morgan’s TikTok explaining how he taste-tested their Bengal cat Clarissa’s meals to ensure it was as much as par.

As for Lichtenstein, who based a web based ad-data firm referred to as Mixrank, Bilton is a bit much less positive: “He’s extra of an enigma. He labored in tech and didn’t make lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} however was comparatively profitable.”

Following their bust, Morgan is out of jail and beneath home arrest. Lichtenstein, a Russian émigré, is being held as a flight threat. A choose believed him to be skillful at crafting false identities and shifting round cash, which kiboshed his alternative to relax together with his spouse of their condominium that Zillow values at $1,518,800 and, based on a 2018 CityRealty itemizing, as soon as got here with lodge facilities comparable to room-service and housekeeping (a doorman advised The Put up that that is now not the case). As per actual property information obtained by The Put up, the couple are renting their condominium which, based on New York journal, is adorned with animal pelts and a taxidermy alligator head.

The primary tenant mentioned the arrest was significantly surprising due to the constructing’s discretion: “Individuals who reside right here don’t invite one another to events and socialize or discuss one different.”

That filmic curiosity on this story is shifting as quick because the information cycle doesn’t shock Bilton, a Self-importance Honest particular correspondent. “Twenty years in the past, this is able to have been a 20,000-word story within the New Yorker,” he mentioned. “However we don’t do these anymore. The brand new 20,000-word journal characteristic is a multi-part documentary.”