Federal prosecutors have charged 18 people in the first-ever racketeering case linked to Bitcoin theft, accusing them of stealing more than 4,100 Bitcoin worth approximately $263 million from a single victim in Washington, D.C. The alleged ringleader, Malone Lam, a Singaporean eighth-grade dropout, allegedly impersonated officials from Google and Gemini to obtain wallet access codes from victims. Investigators unraveled the case after one accomplice failed to mask their IP address while using a rental property costing $47,500 per month. Sentences already handed down to several money launderers in the scheme average around six years in prison. The case comes after the DOJ disbanded its dedicated cryptocurrency enforcement unit, demonstrating that prosecutors can still pursue major crypto theft cases when amounts are large enough and defendants make careless mistakes.
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