Singaporean lives in luxury after stealing 4,100 bitcoins from the US

Singaporean lives a luxurious life after stealing 4,100 bitcoins from the US

Over 700 million won was wasted in one night at a nightclub... Purchased over 30 luxury cars

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Cha Dae-un = A man in his 20s from Singapore, who was showing off his wealth by distributing tens of millions of won worth of Hermes bags around at a nightclub, admitted in court to stealing Bitcoin worth 300 billion won.

According to NBC and BBC on the 9th (local time), the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Singaporean Malon Lam, who was indicted on charges of playing a leading role in a $245 million (approximately 328 billion won) cryptocurrency fraud case, appeared in the Washington DC Federal District Court on the 8th and pleaded guilty.

This incident is considered the largest cryptocurrency theft case in U.S. history.

Lam dropped out of middle school in Singapore and went to the United States in 2023. Although her visa expired shortly after, she continued to live in the United States.

He is accused of collaborating with people he met on an online gaming platform and stealing 4,100 bitcoins by deceiving a victim living in Washington, D.C., in August 2024.

Ram's group took on different roles as employees of Google Cloud and employees of Gemini, an American cryptocurrency platform, and approached the victim by deceiving them by saying, "There was an unauthorized attempt to access the account."

It was discovered that when the victim was deceived, he obtained Google Cloud, PC, and Bitcoin wallet private keys in order, and then stole 4,100 Bitcoin.

Afterwards, they enjoyed a luxurious life in LA and Miami that attracted the public's attention, and were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in September 2024, just one month after the crime.

Ram rented a luxury home in Miami and bought and drove more than 30 luxury cars, including Lamborghini and Ferrari. His Miami home, revealed by the FBI, contained luxury watches worth over $500,000 and high-end clothing worth tens of thousands of dollars.

At nightclubs, he often blatantly boasted about his money. At a nightclub in LA, $569,000 (about 760 million won) was spent in just one night. He also bought several Hermes Birkin bags worth tens of millions of won each and threw them to people at a nightclub party.

Lam, who pleaded guilty in court, could face up to 30 years in prison after an additional trial.

“We will continue to pursue criminals who weaponize technology to steal innocent people’s money,” said Washington DC U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro. “If they build a cybercrime empire, we will find them, dismantle them, and hold them accountable.”