$240m Bitcoin theft gang's lavish spending spree ends in FBI arrests
A network of young men stole over $240m in bitcoin via a phone scam, then blew millions on cars, clubs and mansions before FBI agents moved in.
FBI arrests crypto theft gang after $240m bitcoin heist and month-long spending binge
A group of young men in their late teens and early 20s stole more than $240 million in bitcoin from a single victim in Washington, D.C., in August 2024, wsls.com reports — pulling off one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in US history before blowing through millions on private jets, sports cars and nightclub tabs.
The alleged ringleader, 22-year-old Malone Lam, an eighth-grade dropout originally from Singapore, spent over $569,000 in a single evening at a Los Angeles nightclub. He and associates spent $4 million at clubs across the city over the course of one month. A plea agreement hearing for Lam is set for Tuesday.
Lam faces charges alongside 17 co-defendants. Their cases represent what federal prosecutors describe as an extreme example of an increasingly common form of cybercrime. Complaints of cryptocurrency investment fraud to the FBI rose by nearly 50% in 2025.
A phone call, a false identity and 4,100 bitcoin gone
On 18 August 2024, a man identified in court filings only as "Victim 7" received a phone call at his Washington home. The first caller claimed to be a Google representative, warning of attempts to breach his account. A second caller, purporting to represent the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, told him malware was targeting his crypto wallet.
The two callers manipulated the man into sharing access to his Google Drive and handing over security codes. Lam, along with Veer Chetal and Jeandiel Serrano, used those codes to drain more than 4,100 bitcoin from the victim's wallet, according to prosecutors. The trio had targeted him because he was a wealthy, long-standing crypto investor.
A private recording captured the moment the group realised the scale of what they had taken. "Oh, my God! Bro, bro, I'm going to spaz out!" a voice on a video, posted by cryptocurrency crime investigator ZachXBT, said.
The three had met through online gaming forums and carried out multiple multimillion-dollar thefts using a similar approach since late 2023, prosecutors said. To conceal their tracks, they enlisted money laundering specialists to move the proceeds through multiple exchange platforms and convert cryptocurrency into government-issued cash.
A critical error and a trail of evidence
The scheme began to unravel when Serrano failed to hide his IP address while creating an account on a cryptocurrency exchange to hold nearly $30 million in stolen crypto. Investigators traced the IP address to a property in Encino, California, that Serrano was renting for $47,500 a month.
Serrano was in the Maldives on holiday when authorities identified him as a suspect. Meanwhile, Lam continued spending in Los Angeles, drawing increasing attention. He distributed handbags worth tens of thousands of dollars to women at nightclubs and used stolen cryptocurrency to purchase a $2 million watch and more than 30 cars, including custom Porsches, Lamborghinis and Ferraris, according to the FBI.
Chetal, for his part, gifted a Lamborghini to his parents and concealed a duffel bag containing $500,000 in cash inside their laundry machine.
Kidnapping plot and a search that turns up $37m
News of the windfall spread quickly in criminal circles. One week after the theft, Chetal's parents were driving in Danbury, Connecticut, when several masked men forced their vehicle to a stop. The attackers beat Chetal's father with a baseball bat, pushed both parents into a van and bound their hands. The captors, travelling from Miami, had planned to use the couple as leverage to extort Chetal into surrendering his share of the stolen bitcoin. The plot collapsed when witnesses alerted police, who arrested the carjackers.
On 9 September 2024, FBI agents searched Chetal's apartment in Brunswick, New Jersey, and found $37 million in stolen cryptocurrency in his possession. He agreed to cooperate with the investigation.
Serrano was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on 18 September 2024, wearing a $500,000 watch at the time of his arrest. He initially denied involvement before admitting to holding roughly $20 million of the victim's stolen crypto, prosecutors said. Lam was arrested the same day at one of his Miami mansions.
Broader context: rising fraud, diminished enforcement
"This luxury lifestyle, of which so many young men and women could only dream, was just built on a foundation of fraud," prosecutor William Hart said during a recent sentencing hearing for a money laundering co-defendant.
The case has drawn renewed attention to the wider ecosystem of cryptocurrency fraud. Cybersecurity researcher Allison Nixon, who has spent years tracking The Com — an underground network of young hackers drawn together by the financial returns of crypto crime — called for greater law enforcement resources to be directed at the problem.
"If we don't seriously ramp up the resources to take these people down and do it faster, then it's going to spread more and more," Nixon said.
The Justice Department disbanded a unit dedicated to prosecuting crypto-related crimes last year. Crypto companies that had complained of regulatory overreach under former President Joe Biden are operating under a notably lighter-touch regime since President Donald Trump took office. Trump's crypto businesses generated roughly $1.2 billion in 2025, according to reported figures.
Source: Google News UK — Crime (en)