zlacker

>>mikeyo+(OP)
> “After the execution of court-authorized search warrants of online accounts controlled by Lichtenstein and Morgan, special agents obtained access to files within an online account controlled by Lichtenstein,” the press release said. “Those files contained the private keys required to access the digital wallet that directly received the funds stolen from Bitfinex, and allowed special agents to lawfully seize and recover more than 94,000 bitcoin that had been stolen from Bitfinex. The recovered bitcoin was valued at over $3.6 billion at the time of seizure.”

So most likely,

1) they didn't launder it properly, leading to police being able to trace it to their bank accounts. I wonder if tornado.cash was used.

2) then police had their names, leading to warrants for all online accounts - google account, apple account, etc.

3) they made the big blunder of keeping their private keys in their online account. Most likely a txt file in google drive. That is such a silly blunder. Without the private keys, the police has zero proof of anything. They could have made a hundred excuses for how they got money in their bank account, as long as the police didn't have the private keys. Who keeps their private keys in an online account?

Apparently the biggest criminals make too many silly mistakes. The old saying applies here: "you don't have to be smart, just don't be an idiot"

>>Alexan+Ub
Well you don't want to lose those keys ... there is a bit of a conundrum there (granted you don't have to do it the way they did either).

As far as how exactly they got caught, there was a reward offered by the company it was stolen from. It may have been someone tipped the feds off for the reward.

>>duxup+oc
Crypto 101: never store private keys online.

>>Alexan+Id
Crypto 102: weep for the coins you lost when your cousin spilled soda on the hard drive containing the offline-only copy of your private keys

>>giaour+dx
It's funny! But really there are loads of ways to store your keys physically that are human readable.