Twelve Charged in $263M Crypto Fraud Network Orchestrated by Malone Lam
According to PANews, the U.S. Department of Justice has charged 12 individuals for their roles in a sprawling $263 million cryptocurrency fraud network allegedly led by Malone Lam. The indictment accuses the group of employing a range of tactics including social engineering scams, database breaches, and even physical theft of hardware wallets.
Lam, the central figure in the investigation, faces charges for a single fraudulent scheme worth $230 million. Authorities report that 10 of the defendants are currently in custody, while two remain at large in Dubai.
The group’s operations reportedly involved target profiling, phone-based scams, money laundering, and coordinated burglaries. Lam is alleged to have remotely monitored victims’ iCloud data and directed in-person thefts. Records from August 2024 cite the theft of 4,100 BTC—then valued at $385.4 million—through peer-to-peer scam techniques.
This case follows a September 2024 disclosure by on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, who linked aliases “Greavys” (Malone Lam), “Wiz” (Veer Chetal), and “Box” (Jeandiel Serrano) to a social engineering attack that resulted in a $243 million theft from a Genesis creditor on August 19, 2024.