Singaporean man pleads guilty in Washington DC to $245m crypto theft ring that formed through online gaming

Malone Lam, a 22-year-old Singaporean citizen and recent Miami resident, pleaded guilty on 8 September 2026 to running an international cybercrime network that prosecutors say stole and laundered more than $245 million in cryptocurrency — an operation the Justice Department says grew out of connections made on online gaming platforms.

Lam entered the plea in US District Court in Washington, DC, to a single count of participating in a racketeering conspiracy. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly set a status hearing for 8 December 2026 and did not schedule sentencing. He faces a maximum of 20 years, the BBC and Associated Press reported. AP also reported that at Lam’s first court appearance, a prosecutor estimated sentencing guidelines would recommend a term of at least 14 years on conviction.

“This defendant led an international network that preyed on victims through deception, invaded their privacy, and stole hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency,” US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said in a statement announcing the plea.

According to court documents cited by prosecutors, the enterprise began no later than October 2023 and continued through at least May 2025. Its members were based in California, Connecticut, New York, Florida and abroad. The Justice Department said the scheme “developed through connections made on online gaming platforms,” and that conspirators used social engineering and occasional home break-ins to obtain the information needed to drain victims’ cryptocurrency wallets.

The Justice Department’s announcements do not name a game. Two outlets reporting on court documents have. The News-Times said in July 2025 that Lam, Jeandiel Serrano and Veer Chetal met playing Minecraft online. The Straits Times reported this week that Lam was 19 when he flew to Texas in October 2023 to live with gamers he had befriended through Minecraft, and that the group formed its plan within a month. None of the department’s announcements allege that a game platform was itself compromised, or that the stolen assets were held in a game.

Lam organised the operation, identified targets and coordinated other conspirators’ roles, according to the Justice Department, which listed his online aliases as “Anne Hathaway,” “$$$” and “King Greavy.”

The August 2024 theft

The case first became public on 19 September 2024, when prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging Lam, then 20, and Serrano, then 21, of Los Angeles.

That indictment alleged that on 18 August 2024 the pair and others contacted a victim in Washington, DC, and through those communications obtained more than 4,100 Bitcoin — worth over $230 million at the time, the Justice Department said.

Conspirators laundered proceeds through exchanges and mixing services, using “peel chains,” pass-through wallets and virtual private networks to conceal their identities, according to the 2024 indictment. Prosecutors have described a division of labour across the wider group covering database hacking, selecting targets, making calls to victims, moving money and, in some instances, residential burglaries.

Lam and Serrano were arrested on 18 September 2024, the night before the indictment was unsealed — Lam at a Miami home, Serrano in California. The Justice Department’s plea announcement gives the arrest year as 2025; the contemporaneous 2024 announcement, AP’s reporting and the shared case number, 24cr417, all indicate 2024.

The Justice Department said members of the conspiracy spent stolen funds on nightclub services costing up to $500,000 a night, luxury handbags given away at parties, watches valued between $100,000 and more than $500,000, rented homes in Los Angeles, the Hamptons and Miami, private jet charters, private security guards and a fleet of exotic cars with individual values ranging from $100,000 to $3.8 million. The May 2025 superseding indictment put the fleet at at least 28 vehicles.

At Lam’s first court appearance in Miami, US Magistrate Judge Alicia Valle said the case made her “only think of Ferris Bueller gone bad.”

Co-defendants

The case expanded in May 2025, when prosecutors announced a superseding indictment charging 12 additional defendants in connection with the alleged enterprise, and describing a conspiracy that netted more than $263 million. The charges varied by defendant: most faced racketeering conspiracy, while John Tucker Desmond was charged with obstruction of justice.

Kollar-Kotelly has already taken pleas and passed sentences on co-defendants. Kunal Mehta, 45, of Irvine, California, pleaded guilty on 18 November 2025 to a RICO conspiracy count and admitted laundering at least $25 million; the FBI described him as the eighth defendant to plead guilty. Evan Tangeman, of Newport Beach, pleaded guilty on 8 December 2025 — the ninth plea, according to the Justice Department — admitted laundering at least $3.5 million, and was sentenced on 24 April 2026 to 70 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

Prosecutors said Tangeman directed Desmond to destroy digital devices belonging to members of the enterprise after Lam and Serrano were arrested. Reporting by the Associated Press ahead of the hearing said 18 people had been charged in the case and that Lam would be the 11th to plead guilty, that Chetal pleaded guilty in November 2024 and awaits sentencing, and that Serrano’s charges remain pending.

Reported totals vary between announcements, and the Justice Department’s own releases do not reconcile. Its September 2024 announcement valued the more than 4,100 Bitcoin taken on 18 August 2024 at over $230 million “at the time.” Its May 2025 announcement applied a figure of more than $263 million to the alleged enterprise as a whole. Its November 2025 announcement applied that same $263 million figure to the single August 2024 theft, and valued those coins at more than $384.5 million as at that week. The September 2026 plea announcement used more than $245 million.

Forfeiture orders seen by The Straits Times show at least 28 luxury vehicles have been seized from Lam, including a Rolls-Royce, at least seven Lamborghinis, several Ferraris and a Pagani. The paper reported that at least 95 pieces of jewellery, watches, clothing and shoes were also seized and forfeited.

Lam’s guilty plea does not establish the guilt of other defendants.

The status hearing is scheduled for 8 December 2026.