Malone Lam pleaded guilty on Tuesday to helping steal nearly a quarter-billion dollars in bitcoin from a Washington, D.C., resident, one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in US history. The 22-year-old faces up to 20 years in prison.
Lam, an eighth-grade dropout who came to the US from Singapore, admitted to a federal racketeering conspiracy charge before US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. A sentencing hearing was not immediately scheduled.
Prosecutors said Lam organized a network of young men who ran a string of crypto scams beginning in 2023. He is one of 18 defendants charged in the case and the 11th to plead guilty, a breakthrough for the Justice Department investigation.
The central theft took place in August 2024. Using “social engineering” techniques, Lam and others deceived the Washington man out of bitcoin worth more than $245 million. Two alleged co-conspirators posed as representatives of Google and the Gemini crypto exchange.
Those associates manipulated the victim into granting access to his Google Drive and revealing security codes. That access allowed Lam to siphon off more than 4,100 bitcoin, prosecutors said.
Lam then helped launder the stolen crypto and convert it into cash. The proceeds funded a fleet of sports cars, rented mansions in Miami and millions in nightclub spending, including $569,000 in a single evening at one Los Angeles club, authorities said.
The spending spree lasted about a month before FBI agents arrested Lam in Miami. The indictment states that an off-duty law enforcement officer had tipped off Lam that authorities were coming to arrest him.
The case adds to a series of high-profile crypto thefts tracked by US and Asian authorities. Earlier this year, the industry recorded the largest single exchange breach on record, keeping law enforcement attention on digital-asset crime.
The remaining defendants in the racketeering case await further court proceedings. Lam’s sentencing date is expected to be set at a later hearing in Washington.