From Minecraft to US$245 million crypto heist: Singaporean forfeits 28 cars to US after guilty plea

September 10, 2026

SINGAPORE – Singaporean Malone Lam was 19 when he flew to Texas in October 2023 on his own to live with a few gamers he befriended online through the video game Minecraft.

Within a month of living together, the group hatched a plan to steal cryptocurrency by impersonating employees of security and technical support teams at major companies like Google and cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase.

Lam, who told US investigators he had dropped out of school when he was 13, used his knowledge of computer software and technology to obtain breached databases containing cryptocurrency-related information and lists of high-net-worth individuals.

The group then targeted these individuals.

After analysing the stolen data, Lam triggered “account access attempt” push notifications to the targets to make them think there were unauthorised attempts to access their accounts.

Other members of the group would then convince the targets to provide personal account information by pretending to be security technicians, gaining access to their digital currency wallets or passwords to their accounts before stealing their cryptocurrency.

On Sept 9, Lam pleaded guilty in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to his role as a ringleader in organising one of the US’ largest cryptocurrency thefts.