Singaporean Man, 22, Pleads Guilty to Leading $245 Million Bitcoin Theft Ring

source: therecord

A Singaporean national who dropped out of school in eighth grade pleaded guilty Tuesday in a Washington, D.C., federal court to racketeering conspiracy charges, according to the Associated Press via ABC News, for organizing one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in U.S. history.

Malone Lam, 22, faces up to 20 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly scheduled a status hearing for December 8, 2026, without immediately setting a sentencing date.

Lam is the 11th of 18 charged defendants to plead guilty in the case, which prosecutors say caused more than $245 million in losses.

How the Theft Worked

The scheme began around October 2023, when Lam became roommates in Texas with two co-conspirators and the group began conducting social engineering attacks, The Record reported. They paid rent using proceeds from cybercrime.

Through connections formed on online gaming platforms, additional members from California, Connecticut, Florida, New York, and overseas joined what prosecutors call the Social Engineering Enterprise.

The group divided labor among database hackers, target identifiers, callers, money launderers, and residential burglars who physically stole hardware cryptocurrency wallets.