In 2016, Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex was hacked, with around 119,000 bitcoin ($72 million in 2016) stolen from the exchange. These are the details of the perpetrators of said crime.
Hong Kong charged Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, A.K.A, the Versace Bedouin, the Crocodile of Wall Street, Turkish Martha Stewart were charged with conspiracy to launder the Bitcoin, which is now worth $4.6 billion, technically making this the largest seizure of financial assets in history.
While the theft in and of itself is rather incredible, what has made this story so delightful is the clumsy and sweeping digital footprint of Heather Morgan, the one with all the nicknames.
Morgan’s online presence, spanning most social media sites, includes everything from financial gifts, fashion unboxings, and most notably, rap music videos.
While her social media presence has calmed down a lot since the arrest, much of her content is still available online in some way, shape or form.
According to her Twitter , Morgan is a serial entrepreneur, investor, surreal artist and fashion designer.
The bio is mostly true, as Morgan and Lichtenstein have a background in the finance sector. According to Morgan’s LinkedIn page, she has worked at a few “micro-fund investing firms” and has even written articles for Forbes Magazine.
However, the Heather Morgan saga’s main attraction is her discography of bizarre rap songs that break my comprehension of reality.
The Razzlekhan persona shines through in these music videos, the most popular is the song “Versace Bedouin.”
The song is about three and a half minutes long, but it always feels a lot longer. Despite the inept rapping and generally awkward presentation, the song has an almost uncanny-valley quality.
Much of the response to the song and Razzlekhan dismisses both as cringe. However, there’s a little more there, albeit not that much more.
The instrumental isn’t horrible. While outdated, it has an amusing, cool, if not stereotypically oriental flair to it, and it wouldn’t sound out of place on the soundtrack to Broad City or Sorry to Bother You.
The song’s title, “Versace Bedouin,” is a phonetic spectacle. Her lyrics are rarely good, but there is an identifiable sense of intentionality to them, with some of them bordering on clever when listening to the songs.
What is most puzzling about this video and much of Morgan’s Razzlekhan character is the strange, post-Myspace, early 2010s awkward energy that permeates throughout her videos.
Upon viewing, you could forgive someone for thinking these videos were shot in 2011, making it all the more perplexing than the music video for Versace Bedouin released in 2019.
Other songs by Razz like “Cutthroat Country” have her snitching all over wax with the lyrics “Spearfish your password/all your funds are transferred.”
Given the controversies over whether or not courts can use rap lyrics as evidence, one could only speculate whether or not these lyrics will be admissible in court.
Most of her music is easy to find, and while it can be fun to gawk at her eccentricities, there should be some consideration as to what this hack means for the future of organized crime.
As more developments in digital assets become introduced, along with the rise of web 3.0 services, it is an unfortunate inevitability that cybercrimes like this become not only more commonplace but the norm for organized crime.
Given the notoriously difficult task of recovering cryptos and their gain in mainstream attention, along with our already chaotic financial system, these hacks like the ones Morgan and Lichtenstein were involved in seems to be the future of high-level crime.
