US prosecutors accuse two individuals of involvement in a $230 million cryptocurrency scam

BlockBeats News: On September 20th, according to the announcement of the US Department of Justice, an indictment was unsealed on September 19th, 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 over $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 US District Courts for the Southern District of Florida and the Central District of California on September 19th. According to the indictment, Lam, Serrano, and others conspired to commit cryptocurrency theft and launder money through exchanges and cryptocurrency mixing services starting from August 2024. They illegally obtained the victim's cryptocurrency account through fraudulent means and then transferred the victim's funds to their own account. They clean up these illegal gains through various methods, including using "stripping chains", transitional wallets, and virtual private networks to conceal their true identities through various coin mixers and exchanges. It is reported that Lam and Serrano subsequently used the money laundering proceeds for luxury consumption such as international travel, nightclubs, luxury cars, watches, jewelry, designer handbags, and rental properties in Los Angeles and Miami. In one case, on August 18, 2024, Lam, Serrano, and their accomplices fraudulently obtained over 4100 bitcoins (worth over $230 million at the time) through communication with a victim in Washington D.C. The investigation of this case is handled by the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, the Washington branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Washington branch of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service. The FBI Los Angeles and Miami branches provided important investigation and operational support. The indictment is only an accusation, and all defendants are considered innocent until proven guilty by the court.