Malone Lam, who met his cybercrime partners through Minecraft, has pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge for running a crypto theft ring that bankrolled a supercar collection, bodyguards, and private jets.
Lam, a 22-year-old Singaporean living in Miami, was part of a 12-person gang that operated for about two years after members first met online through Minecraft and later in person in 2023. Court documents describe Lam finding high-net-worth crypto holders to target, supporting social-engineering schemes, using tech to trigger account-access alerts on victims' devices, and helping launder the proceeds. Individual thefts ranged from $800,000 to tens of millions of dollars, separate from one outsized $245 million haul the gang pulled from a single victim. Lam was arrested in September 2024, pleaded guilty to RICO violations, and now faces up to 20 years in prison, with a status hearing set for December 8.
The case shows how casual online friendships, in this instance formed inside a video game, can escalate into organized, RICO-level financial crime rather than isolated hacks. It also underscores that social engineering, not sophisticated exploits, remains the biggest threat to crypto holders: Lam's role was about finding and manipulating targets, not breaking code.
Fellow member Marlon Ferro, who served as the group's physical backup plan for burglaries when scams fell short, already got 6.5 years in May, a reminder that the rest of the crew's fleet of 31 exotic cars and $500,000 nightclub tabs bought them little beyond a shorter runway before investigators caught up.