Singaporean crypto kingpin pleads guilty to orchestrating $240 million bitcoin heist
Por Michael Kunzelman — – World RSS Feed
Singaporean crypto kingpin pleads guilty to orchestrating $240 million bitcoin heist
The charges against Lam and 17 others are an extreme example of an increasingly common form of cybercrime
Michael Kunzelman Thursday 10 September 2026 16:59 BST
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A 22-year-old man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to pulling off one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in history, duping a stranger out of bitcoin worth over $240 million.
Malone Lam, an eighth-grade dropout who came to the U.S. from Singapore, teamed up with friends to steal nearly a quarter-billion dollars in bitcoin from a Washington, D.C., resident — one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in U.S. history — and then embarked on a wild spending spree with the laundered proceeds.
Lam faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years after pleading guilty to a federal racketeering conspiracy charge. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly didn’t immediately schedule Lam’s sentencing hearing in Washington.
Lam was an organizer for a network of young men who carried out a string of crypto scams starting in 2023, prosecutors said.
The charges against Lam and 17 others are an extreme example of an increasingly common form of cybercrime. Complaints of cryptocurrency investment fraud to the FBI rose by nearly 50% in 2025, while Republican President Donald Trump’s administration largely abandoned a regulatory crackdown on the volatile industry.
Last year, the Justice Department disbanded a unit dedicated to prosecuting crypto-related crimes.
Meanwhile, crypto companies that complained of unfair treatment during Democratic President Joe Biden’s presidency are enjoying the government’s hands-off approach under Trump, who took in roughly $1.2 billion from his crypto businesses in 2025.
A man identified as “Victim 7” in court filings was at home in Washington on Aug. 18, 2024, when his phone rang. The first caller identified himself as a Google representative inquiring about attempts to breach his account. A second caller, claiming to be from the Gemini crypto exchange, warned the man of a malware attack affecting his crypto wallet.
The callers manipulated the man into giving them access to his Google Drive and revealing security codes that allowed Lam to siphon off over 4,100 bitcoin, according to prosecutors. They said Lam and his friends on the calls — Veer Chetal and Jeandiel Serrano — targeted the man because he was a wealthy, longtime crypto investor.
A private recording captured the moment when the friends realized how much money they had just stolen, according to a video posted by a well-known private investigator of cryptocurrency crimes who goes by ZachXBT.
The spending spree lasted a month before FBI agents arrested Lam in Miami. An off-duty law enforcement officer had tipped off Lam that authorities were on their way to arrest him, the indictment says.
“We always talked about what it would be like if I were to go down, but never thought it would be this crazy,” Lam told associates from jail on a recorded call, according to his indictment.
Lam’s purchases included a $2 million watch and over 30 cars, including custom Porsches, Lamborghinis and Ferraris, according to the FBI. When Lam indicated that he purchased most but not all of those vehicles himself, the judge asked him if he remembered which ones he personally bought.
“I would need some time,” he told the judge.
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