Singaporean Man Pleads Guilty in $245 Million Bitcoin Heist
A young man from Singapore has pleaded guilty to his role in one of the largest cryptocurrency heists in US history. Malone Lam, 22, was part of a network of scammers who carried out a string of crypto scams starting in 2023. He and his co-conspirators used social engineering techniques to dupe a Washington, DC resident into handing over bitcoin worth over $245 million.
Lam's group posed as representatives of Google and the Gemini crypto exchange to manipulate the victim into giving them access to their Google Drive and revealing security codes. They then siphoned off over 4,100 bitcoin from the victim's account.
Lam used the laundered proceeds to fund a lavish lifestyle, buying a fleet of sports cars, renting mansions in Miami, and spending millions at nightclubs, including $569,000 in one evening at an LA club.