Malone Lam Faces Plea Hearing Over $245M Bitcoin Theft

In brief

• Malone Lam, 22, is due in federal court in Washington on Tuesday for a plea agreement hearing.
• Prosecutors say callers posing as Google and Gemini staff talked a Washington investor out of more than 4,100 BTC.
• The same indictment describes a racketeering group that also burgled homes to steal hardware wallets.

Malone Lam, the 22-year-old Singaporean whom prosecutors identify as an organizer of the crew that took $245 million in Bitcoin from a single investor, is due in federal court in Washington on Tuesday for a plea agreement hearing.

A man named in court filings only as Victim-7 was at home in Washington when callers claiming to be from Google and Gemini warned him his accounts were under attack. They talked him into installing remote desktop software and surrendering his security codes, then moved more than $245 million in Bitcoin out of his wallets.

The indictment charges 18 people as a racketeering group it calls the Social Engineering Enterprise, with roles running from database hackers to callers to money launderers. It grew out of friendships formed in online gaming and worked from stolen crypto databases to pick targets. When a victim kept coins on a hardware wallet, prosecutors say, members flew to the house and broke in.