Biggest Heist Ever is my first official documentary watch of 2025. Directed by the ever-reliable Chris Smith, this mixed-bag production leans more toward the good than the bad.
Like most white-collar crime documentaries, it follows a familiar template: a crime of epic proportions, typically involving vast sums of money – smart yet morally bankrupt criminals and a dogged bunch of investigators, journalists or detectives trying to uncover the truth.
This narrative framework hooks the audience with the anticipation of a satisfying resolution.
Biggest Heist Ever doesn’t deviate from this track, which is both its strength and its limitation.
The challenge with this genre today is oversaturation. With so many similar stories released in recent years, any new addition risks feeling formulaic.
That said, Smith’s skilled storytelling kept me engaged for the 80-minute runtime. However, the documentary raises several questions that remain frustratingly unanswered – questions I suspect many viewers would have wanted the filmmakers to explore in greater depth.
The documentary begins with the dramatic 2016 hack of Bitfinex, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by bitcoin volume.
The hack sent shockwaves across the globe, with 119,754 bitcoin worth $72 million then (a mouth-watering $11.7 billion at today’s valuation) — stolen from the exchange.
Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan: The Unlikely Culprits
We are introduced to the culprits—Ilya Lichtenstein, a nerdy, Silicon Valley archetype and his eccentric, attention-seeking partner, Heather Morgan, also known by her bizarre alias, Razzlekhan.
Morgan spends much of her time creating wacko TikTok content and cringe-inducing rap videos, making her an unlikely accomplice in such a high-stakes crime.
The documentary jumps into their backstories, presenting interviews with high school friends and teachers who describe the duo as shy, intellectually gifted individuals. Predictably, these talking heads express shock and disbelief at their eventual turn to crime. If you are white-collar crime documentaries veteran, you’d know how overused this trope is.
Given the magnitude of the theft, it wasn’t long before federal investigators got involved.
What’s intriguing—and baffling—is how Ilya and Morgan seemingly went about their daily lives without a care, as if they had committed no crime. Despite Ilya’s intelligence, he struggled to launder the stolen bitcoins, an issue the documentary underscores but doesn’t deeply explore.
The case leaves many mysteries unresolved, which the filmmakers openly acknowledge.
For instance, Ilya reportedly wrote to the documentary team, cryptically stating that there’s more to the story than meets the eye.
While Ilya is currently serving his sentence after being arrested in 2022, Morgan managed to evade capture until November 2024, when she was also sentenced to 18 months in prison for money-laundering.
One of the more compelling threads involves speculation about Ilya’s father’s potential involvement. A former hacker with a shady past—including a similar crime in 2002—his role in the Bitfinex hack is hinted at but never confirmed.
Beyond its engaging narrative, Biggest Heist Ever serves as a stark reminder of a critical yet often overlooked truth: cryptocurrencies stored on exchanges are anything but safe.
As the documentary emphasizes, your assets are significantly more secure in private wallets. These wallets use passkeys under your sole control. This is much safer compared to leaving assets on centralized exchanges.
Unfortunately, the threat of crypto scams and hacks is far from over. Human greed and ingenuity know no bounds and this story is one of many more to come.
Final Verdict
While Biggest Heist Ever is undoubtedly watchable and entertaining, it falls short of delivering the in-depth investigative rigor viewers might expect.
Much of the information presented is readily available in the public domain. A more detailed exploration of how Ilya orchestrated the hack or whether anyone else was involved, would have significantly elevated the documentary.
Production values are decent, but the background score fails to leave an impression. In my opinion, even for a documentary, a good background score adds a lot of heft.
In conclusion, Biggest Heist Ever is worth your time, but don’t expect groundbreaking revelations. It’s an enjoyable watch that scratches the surface of an unfolding saga and one that may yet have more twists and turns to reveal.
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