$245 Million Crypto Heist Mastermind Pleads Guilty to RICO Charges
A Singaporean national has pleaded guilty to racketeering charges for his role in leading a group of scammers who stole over $245 million in cryptocurrency.
Malone Lam, 22, will face sentencing on December 8 in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., where he could receive a sentence ranging from 7 to 20 years for participating in a RICO conspiracy charge.
Lam was the mastermind behind an operation that conducted social engineering scams to steal cryptocurrency, often posing as customer service representatives or IT experts and convincing victims to hand over sensitive information.
The group gained access to databases of information about people with large amounts of cryptocurrency and either scammed them into providing access to their funds or broke into their homes to physically steal devices.