Singaporean Organizer Faces Plea Hearing Over $245M Bitcoin Heist

Malone Lam, a 22-year-old Singaporean, will face a plea agreement hearing in federal court in Washington on Tuesday. Prosecutors accuse him of being an organizer of a group that stole over $245 million in Bitcoin from a single investor.

The victim, identified as Victim-7, was targeted by callers posing as Google and Gemini staff who convinced him to install remote desktop software and surrender his security codes. The thieves then moved the funds out of his wallets.

The group, dubbed the Social Engineering Enterprise, is charged with racketeering and includes 18 defendants. Members worked together from stolen crypto databases to pick targets, and when victims kept coins on hardware wallets, they would break in and steal them.