The organizer of a cyber group, whose members met on Minecraft servers, pleaded guilty to charges of racketeering. 22-year-old Singaporean citizen Malone Lam, who lived in Miami, faces up to 20 years in prison.
Full case materials published by the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia.
According to investigators, Lam came to the United States in 2023 to meet in person for the first time with Zhandiel Serrano and Vir Chetal, with whom he had previously only communicated in the game. Soon the role of the Singaporean in the group became one of the key ones.
Investigators list his responsibilities as follows: searching for wealthy cryptocurrency owners, assisting in social engineering operations, using technical means to trigger alerts about access to accounts on victims’ gadgets, as well as participating in the laundering of stolen funds.
In total, the group consisted of about 12 people, and it operated for about two years. The size of individual thefts ranged from $800,000 to tens of millions of dollars. In one of the episodes, $245 million worth of cryptocurrency was withdrawn from the only victim.
With the money they received, the participants led an extremely wasteful lifestyle. Court documents mention “a fleet of 31 exotic cars valued between $100,000 and $3,800,000.”
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In addition to cars, members of the group spent up to $500 thousand in one night in clubs, bought luxury watches and clothes, and rented expensive housing in Los Angeles, the Hamptons and Miami. They traveled on private planes, accompanied by security guards.
Lam did not have to enjoy this way of life for long – he was detained in September 2024. After this, the investigation expanded, and the last members of the “Minecraft team” were detained around May 2025.
Lam pleaded guilty under the RICO law, which regulates the fight against organized crime, and a hearing on the status of the case is scheduled for December 8. Another member of the group, Marlon Ferro, already received 6.5 years in prison in May. His role has been described as a “physical Plan B” – he carried out hacks and thefts in the real world when social engineering attacks were not enough.
