Malone Lam Set to Plead Guilty in $263 Million Bitcoin Social-Engineering Theft

Malone Lam, a 22-year-old Singaporean accused of leading a group that stole more than 4,100 Bitcoin from a Washington, D.C. investor in August 2024, is scheduled to enter a guilty plea in US federal court on September 9, according to court filings reported by Crypto Briefing. At least 10 of the 18 people charged in the case have already pleaded guilty ahead of his hearing, including a codefendant, Evan Tangeman, whose own guilty plea to racketeering conspiracy the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia announced alongside a second superseding indictment adding three more defendants.

Prosecutors say the theft occurred on August 18, 2024, when members of the group contacted a longtime crypto investor identified in filings as "Victim 7" and used social engineering to gain control of his holdings. One caller impersonated a Google representative warning of suspicious account activity, while another posed as an employee of the Gemini exchange citing a malware threat. The calls convinced the victim to share Google Drive access and security codes, which the group used to seize his Bitcoin, then valued at roughly $263 million and worth more than $368 million at current prices, per the Justice Department.

The Justice Department describes the operation as a criminal enterprise that began in October 2023 and ran through at least May 2025, encompassing database hackers, callers, target identifiers and residential burglars who targeted hardware wallets. FBI agents arrested co-defendant Veer Chetal on September 9, 2024, followed by Jeandiel Serrano and Lam on September 18. Chetal pleaded guilty to conspiracy that November. In the months since, defendant Tucker Desmond was sentenced to probation in March 2026 for destroying evidence, and a defendant identified as Ferro received roughly six years in prison in May after pleading guilty to racketeering conspiracy.

In the weeks after the theft, members spent lavishly: Lam reportedly spent $569,000 in a single night at a Los Angeles nightclub and bought a $2 million watch and more than 30 vehicles, prosecutors said, while Chetal bought his parents a Lamborghini and kept $500,000 in cash in a washing machine. Federal sentencing guidelines put Lam's exposure at a minimum of 14 years in prison. US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has previously rejected defense arguments tied to the defendants' youth in related proceedings, saying "being young only goes so far."