First Bitcoin RICO case charges 18 defendants over $263M crypto heist

A federal RICO conspiracy prosecution has charged 18 people for stealing more than 4,100 Bitcoin, worth approximately $263 million at the time, from a single victim in Washington, D.C. It is the first major application of racketeering charges to a cryptocurrency theft scheme, and it arrives with a peculiar twist: the Justice Department is prosecuting the case after dismantling the very unit built to handle cases like it. The lead defendant, Malone Lam, is an eighth-grade dropout from Singapore. He and his co-defendants allegedly impersonated officials from Google and Gemini to trick victims into handing over wallet access codes. The theft occurred on August 18, 2024, and arrests began the following month after one co-defendant failed to mask their IP address, a mistake that unraveled the entire operation. A $569K bar tab and the trail it left If the alleged theft was sophisticated, the spending that followed was anything but subtle. Lam reportedly burned through $4 million at nightclubs within a single month. One night’s tab alone came to $569,000. The group’s alleged expenditures also included private jets, luxury cars, and mansions. The trail back to the defendants started with s...