For a year and a half, 22-year-old Singaporean Malone Lam posed as a Google support agent, then as staff from the crypto exchange Gemini. Victims switched off their own two-factor authentication and shared their screens, convinced they were fixing an account problem. On Tuesday, Lam pleaded guilty to a federal racketeering conspiracy charge tied to $245 million in stolen cryptocurrency.
The scheme ran on fear and trust. Callers convinced targets their accounts had been hacked, then handed them off to a fake exchange support line that talked victims into surrendering private keys and two-factor codes. The single biggest haul — 4,100 bitcoin worth roughly $230 million — came in August 2024; a separate $14 million theft happened a month earlier. Proceeds moved through crypto mixers, exchanges and a chain of VPNs before Lam could touch them.
He spent the money fast: more than thirty luxury cars ranging from $100,000 to $3.8 million apiece, rental mansions in Los Angeles, the Hamptons and Miami, private jets, and nightclub tabs that reportedly hit $500,000 in a single evening. Prosecutors say Lam kept directing associates even from pretrial detention, at one point arranging luxury deliveries for his girlfriend.
Eighteen people face charges in the case; Lam is the eleventh to plead guilty. Co-defendant Evan Tangeman was sentenced in April to more than five years. The racketeering count carries up to 20 years, though Lam's sentencing date hasn't been set — the next hearing is December 8. “If you build a cybercrime empire, we will find you, dismantle your operation, and hold you accountable,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
The case is a reminder that crypto's weakest link usually isn't the blockchain — it's the person answering the phone. No wallet security holds up once the owner reads out the keys themselves.
