Gee, I wonder how they did all of this very sophisticated monitoring and tracking... :) Always gives me big smile when I read crypto types saying it gives them privacy.
“Lawyers for the government went on to accuse Lichtenstein and Morgan of using fake identities to open online accounts and deploying devices to automate transactions — in addition to a spate of other laundering techniques. The stolen funds were also deposited into several different virtual currency exchanges and darknet markets in an attempt to wash the currency, something the DOJ called “chain hopping.”
The bitcoin was converted into other currency that shielded their identity, and US bank accounts were used to make their transactions look legitimate. “
After the fact by accessing the wallet histories, most likely. The criminals are idiots who had their wallet KEYS in the cloud where they could be seized by order of a court.