Singaporean in US who masterminded S$309million bitcoin theft pleads guilty | The Independent Singapore

10 Sep 2026, 12:01 · The Independent

SINGAPORE: On Wednesday (Sep 9), Malone Lam, a Singaporean, pleaded guilty in the United States to having orchestrated the theft of US$240 million (S$309 million) in bitcoin.

After pleading guilty to a federal racketeering conspiracy charge, the 22-year-old now faces the possibility of spending as long as 20 years in jail for what is being called one of the biggest cryptocurrency heists in US history.

There are a total of 18 defendants in the case, and Lam is the 11th to enter a guilty plea, according to reporting from the Associated Press, which noted that his conviction is an important development for the investigation by the US Justice Department.

Lam has not yet been sentenced.

Who is Malone Lam?

Lam was born on Jul 19, 2004, and attended Unity Secondary School in Choa Chu Kang in 2017. He left school at the age of 13 without finishing the secondary level, and focused instead on online gaming communities and cryptocurrency trading.

He moved to the United States by himself in October 2023, when he was 19, and lived with a group of male friends he met while playing Minecraft.

Shortly afterwards, the group, which eventually grew to more than 14 in number, began to conduct a series of crypto scams.

By August 2024, Lam and other group members began employing social engineering tactics targeted at a man in Washington, from whom they were able to steal millions of dollars.

Two of the group members pretended to be Google and Gemini representatives and were able to persuade the victim to give them access to his Google Drive. Once they did this, Lam was able to bypass security and steal more than 4,100 bitcoin.

Except for one member, Lam and his group were all between the ages of 18 and 22. For more than one and a half years, they hacked websites and servers to steal databases, looking for victims with the most crypto assets. They then carried out their schemes, pretending to be security professionals and urging these “clients” to get better protection.

After the assets were stolen, they were laundered through conversion to US dollars through wire transfers or bulk cash shipments.

After Lam and his associate were arrested in September 2024, the other members of the group went on to spend US$4 million (S$5.16 million) at nightclubs and US$9 million (S$11.6 million) on vehicles, until the FBI caught up with them.

During that time, Lam continued to work with the group, including having some of them buy and hand-deliver Birkin bags to his girlfriend in Miami. /TISG