22-year-old Singaporean, Malone Lam pleads guilty to stealing $245 million in 4,100 Bitcoin from a U.S. victim in 2024.
They were caught after one of them forgot to use a VPN.
Lam and colleagues posed as Google Gemini agent, to gain access and wipe the victims accounts. Then they went on a flashy spending spree acquiring;
31 luxury cars, Miami mansions, Private Jet trips, $560k worth luxury watches, spending over $500k in night clubs. They purchased luxury Birkin bags and threw them into crowds.
But this wasn’t the cause of their downfall. While authorities have been investigating the incident, one of the hackers, Jeandiel Serrano, forgot to use a VPN when creating the crypto wallet they used to keep $30M of the stolen funds.
Authorities then traced the IP to a high-end rental home he was using in California. Due to the hastyness to move and convert the stolen crypto funds to cash, through different apps, they left more trails for the FBI and IRS to explore.
Seranno was arrested on September 18, 2024 at LA Int’l airport.
That same day, Malone Lam the ring leader was arrested a luxury waterfront mansion in Miami. An off duty police officer tipped him that agents were heading his way, in a desperate bid to destroy evidence, he threw his phone into the Biscayne Bay. — The phone was recovered.
They are 18 in total, Lam a secondary school drop out, faces up to 20yrs in prison. As authorities say this is one of the biggest crypto heist ever recorded.
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