8th-grade dropout accused of blowing $240M Bitcoin haul on Ferraris and $4M club nights

A 22-year-old Singapore man accused of helping steal more than $240 million in Bitcoin from a single victim and splurging the proceeds on luxury cars, private jets, mansions and wild nights out is expected to plead guilty this week in one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in U.S. history.

Malone Lam, an eighth-grade dropout from Singapore whom prosecutors have identified as a suspected ringleader of the sprawling cryptocurrency scheme, is scheduled for a plea agreement hearing Tuesday in federal court in Washington, D.C.

Lam and his alleged co-conspirators were part of an alleged network of young men in their late teens and early 20s who prosecutors say used a sophisticated “social engineering” attack in August 2024 to trick a wealthy, longtime cryptocurrency investor into handing over access to his digital holdings.

According to prosecutors, members of the group contacted the victim while posing as representatives of Google and the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, warning him that his accounts had been compromised.

The scammers allegedly convinced the victim to give them access to his Google Drive and provide security codes that allowed Lam and others to siphon off more than 4,100 Bitcoin, then worth over $240 million.