22-Year-Old Crypto Thief Faces 20 Years | Durham News

0:00It's September 8th. I'm Corey with the story, and this is Durham News today. Local news powered by AI. So we got this 22-year-old dude, Malone Lamb, who just copped his stealing a massive amount of Bitcoin. We're talking over $245 million worth, all from one person in DC. This is one of the biggest crypto-highs the US has seen, and he's looking at up to 20 years behind bars for it. Lamb was apparently a key player and a crew of young guys running scams, and this particular heist went down in August of last year. They used some slick social engineering tricks, with a couple of his buddies pretending to be from Google and a crypto exchange. They convinced the victim to give them access to his stuff and security codes, and boom, over 4,000 Bitcoin were gone. After they got the goods, Lamb went on a serious spending spree. He helped wash the stolen crypto and turned it into cash, which he blew on a bunch of sports cars, fancy mansions down in Miami, and some wild nights.

1:00Out at clubs, we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars dropped in a single night at one spot. This whole thing unraveled pretty quickly, though. The spending spree only lasted about a month before the FBI caught up with him in Miami. Apparently, someone tipped him off that the feds were on their way, but it was too late. He'd already bought a ton of luxury items, including a $2 million watch, and over 30 high-end cars. When he was in court, the judge even asked him if he remembered which cars he personally bought, and he basically said he'd need some time to figure it out. It's wild how fast that money came and went, and now he's facing the consequences.