On September 20, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that an indictment was unsealed on September 19, accusing 20-year-old Malone Lam from Miami, Florida and Los Angeles, California, and 21-year-old Jeandiel Serrano from Los Angeles of conspiring to steal and launder more than $230 million in cryptocurrency. Lam is a Singaporean citizen, using the online aliases "Anne Hathaway" and "$$$", while Serrano uses "VersaceGod" and "@SkidStar" as his online names. They have been arrested and appeared in the U.S. District Courts for the Southern District of Florida and the Central District of California on September 19, respectively.
According to the indictment, Lam, Serrano, and others conspired to commit cryptocurrency thefts and launder the proceeds through exchanges and mixing services since August 2024. They illegally obtained victims' cryptocurrency accounts through fraudulent means and then transferred the victims' funds to their own accounts. They laundered these illegal proceeds through a variety of methods, including using "strip chains", transition wallets, and virtual private networks through various mixers and exchanges to conceal their true identities. Lam and Serrano allegedly then used the laundered proceeds for luxury consumption such as international travel, nightclubs, luxury cars, watches, jewelry, designer handbags, and rental homes in Los Angeles and Miami. In one case, on August 18, 2024, Lam, Serrano and their accomplices fraudulently obtained more than 4,100 bitcoins (valued at more than $230 million at the time) through communications with a victim in Washington, D.C.
The investigation of this case was handled by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, the FBI’s Washington Field Office, and the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation’s Washington Field Office. The FBI’s Los Angeles and Miami Field Offices provided significant investigative and operational support.
The indictment is merely an accusation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of law.
