Technically they were charged with conspiring to launder money, completely unrelated to any mention of theft or hacking.
From TFA: "Court papers filed against the couple did not accuse them of the hack itself; officials declined to say if the pair are suspected of stealing the money."
Interesting point, but if the government considered whoever had control of the coins the rightful owner and not stolen, would it be laundering then? It doesn't sound like a problem of taxes.
Laundering is any process to legitimize illicit income. It does not matter who owns the coins or other assets in question. What matters is if the coins represent any vehicle of fund transfer that originate from any form of criminal enterprise or other unreported financial activity.
which is why they weren't charged with actual money laundering. they only got them with conspiracy which is a super weak charge.
a money laundering charge requires an illicit origin, which means it can only be a tacked on charge after charging or proving someone was involved in the illegal activity.
the government just doesn't know, they just find everything this couple did to be super suspicious. they clearly had control of an excessive amount of cryptocurrency that they were reintegrating into the economy. the government doesn't seem to know if they were actually involved in the heist, or how, or to what extent.
simply obfuscating money isn't illegal. obfuscating an illicit origin is. lets see if the government can get to the bottom of this "conspiracy to obfuscate money of an illicit origin".
I was replying under some comment thread about the the government "not legitimizing" bitcoin, and thus not considering "bitcoin theft" to be actual theft.
All it says is that they don't yet have strong evidence to expect a conviction on hacking charges. And it's quite likely that some other people were involved in the hack itself - perhaps after this arrest, they will get some new information that will allow them to charge someone for the hack itself, for example, out of a plea deal when one of the gang turns against the others.
From TFA: "Court papers filed against the couple did not accuse them of the hack itself; officials declined to say if the pair are suspected of stealing the money."