According to court documents filed by the prosecution, “The defendants have not just a strong incentive to flee, but the means to do so, and they appear to have taken meaningful steps toward establishing new identities and financial accounts in Ukraine and Russia to enable this flight.”
The feds are alleging that Lichtenstein and Morgan have “access to numerous fraudulent identities and documents purchased on the darknet, and the ability to easily acquire more.” And they appeared to “have been setting up a contingency plan for a life in Ukraine and/or Russia prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Lichtenstein is a dual U.S.-Russian citizen and had renewed his Russian passport in 2019, prosecutors said. Russia doesn’t extradite its own citizens and Morgan would be eligible for Russian citizenship due to her marriage to Lichtenstein, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors also say the Lichtenstein’s most probably still have control over crypto accounts containing $328 million. And have their proven expertise in creating false identities through the dark web. And know how to set up bank accounts under fake names.
