I just saw a crazy crypto crime case and I had to share it. In August 2024, a 20-year-old named Malone Lam and his team pulled off a major operation—stealing 4,064 Bitcoins, worth about 238 million US dollars at the time.

Malone Lam’s crew included 18-year-old Veer Chetal, 21-year-old Jeandiel Serrano, as well as Danish Khan and Chen. They went after a Genesis creditor—a guy who held thousands of Bitcoins—completely unaware that disaster was about to hit.

Their method was actually pretty old-school but incredibly effective. A person calling themselves Wiz impersonated Google support, tricking the victim into thinking their account had been hacked, and then gained access to Gmail and iCloud. Next, Box showed up, pretending to be a Gemini employee and claiming the exchange account was under attack and needed to be reset. When the victim panicked, they turned off two-factor authentication—an action that directly handed their Gemini account over to the attackers. The final blow was getting the victim to install AnyDesk—exposing their screen and private keys—so the Bitcoins ended up in their hands.

At 4:05 AM, the 4,064 Bitcoins disappeared instantly. Once the transaction was confirmed, it could never be reversed. Malone Lam and his team immediately started laundering the money, spreading the funds across 15 exchanges and converting them into LTC, ETH, and XMR to cover their tracks.

Next came the wild spending spree. Malone Lam spent 500,000 US dollars in a nightclub in one night, bought a 10.5 million US dollar mansion in Miami, and had a garage full of supercars. He even bought 5 Hermès Birkin bags and gave them one by one to women at the club. The most unbelievable part is that Malone Lam also bought a pink Lamborghini Urus in an attempt to win back his ex-girlfriend—but she didn’t even pay him any attention.

Good times didn’t last. On September 19, agents stormed Malone Lam’s mansion, and this self-proclaimed crypto king was cuffed. The entire criminal gang was arrested and is now waiting in court for sentencing, with each person facing decades of federal prison.

What’s interesting is that in a theft case totaling 230 million US dollars, only 90 million US dollars has been recovered. The rest of the money is still hidden in various wallets and exchanges, and no one knows when it will be recovered. This case really reflects some real issues in the crypto world—just how important security protections are.