A Malaysian man is accused of stealing and laundering US$ 230 million in bitcoin by posing as a victim of a hoodwinking scheme, according to court documents.
Murphy Lam, 20, is facing charges in the United States of wire fraud and money laundering.
Together with his co-conspirator, Jeandiel Serrano, they reportedly stole over 4, 100 bitcoin – for about US$ 230 million at the time – from a victim in Washington.
According to the prosecution, the fraud was referred to as “one of the largest crypto thefts in the history of the United States.”
On Wednesday ( Oct 23 ) morning Singapore time, Serrano appeared in court for a status hearing. According to court records, both the prosecution and the defense were” seeking a solution of this subject other than a trial.”
They requested a maximum of 60 days to maintain the plea negotiations and may keep the judge informed if a settlement is reached before the date.
Court documents obtained earlier this month provided more information about Lam and Serrano’s alleged involvement with the fraud and how they spent the funds.
THE Robbery
Lam and his co-conspirator Serrano, 21, from Los Angeles, targeted the sufferer because they identified him as a “high-net-worth investment” from the early weeks of bitcoin.
According to court documents, the fraud was well-planned, with a co-conspirator authorizing the sufferer to receive “unauthorised Google profile entry” messages in the week leading up to the fraud.
This individual also used surrogate and virtual private network (VPN) services to create the impression that the entry attempts were coming from abroad, which laid the foundation for the theft through” complex social engineering.”
The victim was allegedly called by Lam and his companion on August 18 while they were posing as Facebook support group members. They claimed that his bill had been targeted by a hack and that it needed to be shut down.
After the pair allegedly accessed the defendant’s Dropbox and Gmail accounts to find the cryptocurrency assets, the victim was eventually persuaded to provide the security rules to his account.
He even “further scoured” the defendant’s personal records looking for additional information, court records showed.