"Biggest Heist Ever" 4K Review

 The latest in Bitcoin-themed documentaries comes courtesy of Netflix and director Chris Smith (Wham!, Hollywood Con Queen) in the form of Biggest Heist Ever, the tale of the 2016 theft of $70 million in Bitcoin from a Hong Kong-based crypto currency exchange called Bitfinex by hackers. With the crypto boom several years later, the haul was then worth $4.5 billion - at the time of this writing, it'd be worth $12 billion & yes, I regret not buying Bitcoin in 2010 - an amount that prompted Internal Revenue Service money laundering investigator Chris Janczewski to begin trying to track down where the money may've gone.

 Because every crypto transaction is logged on the blockchain (the makers explain the tech of crypto clearly), Janczewski was able to analyze where the coins had passed from wallet to wallet, but couldn't determine who had control of them. He suspected that the hackers were stuck trying to get the cyber coins translated into spendable currency because to do so means presenting your real identities to set up accounts.

His prime suspects are the least likely pair of cyber Bonnie & Clydes - Silicon Valley tech bro Ilya Lichtenstein and his girlfriend Heather Morgan who worked as a consultant and contributor to Forbes online. Adding a bizarre spin to things is Morgan's rapper/social media influencer wannabe persona as "Razzlekhan" with thousands of videos including some of the most cringe-inducing stuff you'll ever see. No way could these two have pulled off the heist of the 21st Century, right?

 Spoiler: They did, or to be more specific, they plead guilty to the charges, though Smith definitely implies they may not have conducted the actual hack. (The way they ultimately trip themselves up is so stupid it beggars belief.) This leads to the fundamental flaw with Biggest Heist Ever in that it doesn't quite resolve itself satisfactorily, though it offers more of a conclusion than the long walk to nowhere which was Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan & Sara. 

With no participation from either perp, we're left with lots of talk from former friends, colleagues, collaborators, and investigators along with the massive amounts of videos from the weirdos. It's entertaining, but superficial and vaguely incomplete feeling. 

Score: 6/10. Catch it on Netflix.