They described themselves as “serial entrepreneurs” focused on bitcoin technology and the B2B space, but prosecutors say the only business they seemed to be doing was laundering stolen money.

On the surface, Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and Heather Morgan, 31, seemed like an enthusiastic hipster couple trying to make it big in tech. But federal prosecutors say they were secret criminals sitting atop a huge cache of stolen bitcoin, -2.08% whose value was shooting through the roof. They were arrested on the morning of 8 February morning in Manhattan on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and to defraud the US government, authorities said.