A Singaporean man has pleaded guilty in Washington, D.C., to helping steal more than 4,100 Bitcoin, worth more than $230 million, from a single victim. Twenty-two-year-old Malone Lam admitted he led an international conspiracy that got into the victim’s accounts by impersonating trusted companies, not by cracking crypto security.
On August 18, 2024, two associates contacted the victim while posing as representatives from Google and Gemini. They persuaded the victim to hand over security credentials and authentication codes, then used that access to transfer out the entire Bitcoin stash.
Authorities say the broader scheme involved more than $245 million in stolen and laundered crypto. Investigators were able to trace the group in part through the movement of the funds and spending on luxury items. Lam now faces up to 20 years in prison.
One of the biggest crypto theft cases in U.S. history was not a wallet hack or protocol failure. It was old-fashioned impersonation.