Malone Lam pleaded guilty on Tuesday in the US to a racketeering conspiracy charge tied to the theft and laundering of $245 million in bitcoin. The 22-year-old admitted helping steal the cryptocurrency with friends, but US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly did not immediately set a sentencing hearing.
Lam faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. He told investigators in the US that he had dropped out of secondary school in Singapore when he was 14.
US Department of Justice case
The US Department of Justice said Lam was the ringleader of the criminal enterprise and used the names Anne Hathaway, $$$ and King Greavy. According to the department, the group met through online gaming platforms and tricked people into giving away confidential information before conducting occasional home break-ins.
Court documents say the conspiracy began no later than October 2023 and continued to at least May 2025. Lam travelled to the US in October 2023, and his visa expired in January the next year.
FBI agents arrested Lam and a co-conspirator in September 2024. In April this year, Evan Tangeman was sentenced to 70 months in prison for laundering proceeds from the scheme.
Luxury spending trail
The US Department of Justice said the stolen bitcoin funded spending that included up to $500,000 per evening at nightclubs, a fleet of exotic cars valued from $100,000 to $3.8 million, Hermes Birkin handbags worth tens of thousands of dollars, high-end watches worth up to $500,000, luxury clothing valued in the tens of thousands of dollars, rental homes in Los Angeles, the Hamptons and Miami, private jet rentals and private security guards.
The described the case as one of the biggest ever cryptocurrency thefts. Lam pleaded guilty, but the sentencing date remains unset, leaving the size of the final penalty for the 22-year-old to be decided by the court.
