Singaporean Man Pleads Guilty to $240M Bitcoin Heist

A 22-year-old man from Singapore has pleaded guilty to orchestrating one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in U.S. history, stealing nearly a quarter-billion dollars in Bitcoin from a Washington, D.C., resident.

The man, Malone Lam, an eighth-grade dropout who came to the U.S. from Singapore, faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years after pleading guilty to a federal racketeering conspiracy charge.

Lam was an organizer for a network of young men who carried out a string of crypto scams starting in 2023, prosecutors said.

In August 2024, Lam and others used 'social engineering' techniques to dupe the Washington man out of Bitcoin worth over $245 million.