Ringleader of $245 Million Crypto Theft Pleads Guilty

Malone Lam, a 22-year-old Singaporean national living in Miami, pleaded guilty on September 8, 2026, in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to one count of racketeering conspiracy in connection with one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts prosecuted in the United States. According to the Department of Justice, Lam led an international cybercrime ring that stole and laundered more than $245 million in digital assets, and he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Prosecutors said the enterprise operated from October 2023 through at least May 2025, using hacked or purchased databases to identify wealthy cryptocurrency holders and then deploying social engineering tactics to obtain their logins and private keys. In some instances, members broke into victims' homes to seize hardware wallets. In one case cited by the Justice Department, a codefendant broke into a New Mexico residence and stole a hardware wallet while Lam monitored the victim's movements through a hacked iCloud account. The largest single theft occurred in August 2024, when two conspirators posing as representatives of Google and the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange convinced a Washington, D.C.