Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Stole $230,000,000 - The Malone Lam story

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Malone Lam and his friends allegedly stole $230,000,000 worth of cryptocurrency.

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Oh! Marvel Studios The Fantastic Four First Steps, now streaming on Disney Plus, we did PG-13. What time is it, Ben? It's Clubber Time! So this guy is rich. I mean like $230 million rich. Because he stole it. And then he went wild. Now the guy's name is Malone. He's 20 years old and he's really into crypto.

And one day in 2024, he and his buddies are all in a chat. And one of them is like, hey bro, let's find someone who has millions of dollars in Bitcoin and scam them out of it. And Malone hears this idea and he's like, Hi. And so they search around and they finally decide, side on a target, this seemingly random yet wealthy investor living in DC who will just call investor. And so the guys deep dive and they get investors information and they get his phone number and they call him from a spoofed number pretending to be Google tech support like,

Hello, sir, your personal accounts have been compromised. Then afterwards, they call investor from a different number and they say they're from his cryptocurrency exchange. I'm calling to alert you that your account has been hacked. And once investor, believes he's been hacked, it's easy to convince him to reset his security information. Then the boys get him to share his screen, which exposes the private keys to his Bitcoin wallet. Once they get investors private keys, they use them to access his Bitcoin wallet. And boom, Malone and his bros secretly transfer over 4,100 Bitcoin out of the account and over to themselves. And at this time, 4,100 Bitcoin is worth around $230 million.

$230 million. Oh, I, I, I gotta, I gotta leave. And of course, Malone and his friends are like, holy shit. They can't believe this actually worked. And so they're freaking out and they're celebrating in the chat. And for some reason, one of their friends is recording the whole chat. We get it. Oh my God.

No way. Oh my God. No way. $243 million. Bro, pro, I'm going to spize out. Do you know how much money got it is? Now, this recording of them celebrating is gonna be very important later. But whatever, right now, these guys are suddenly witcher than they've ever imagined.

Not only that, they're smart enough to know they gotta cover their tracks. Since every transaction on the blockchain is publicly viewable, they make all this really hard to track by splitting the coin into different accounts. And yeah, blah, blah, blah, boring crypto stuff. They move the money around to make it untraceable. That's all you need to know. And so Malone and his bros suddenly have this insane amount of money, which they've never had before.

So now it's time to start spending it. Now Malone's friends, they don't really do all that much with it, not right away. Oh, but Malone does. Malone goes wild. He becomes like a cartoon parody of a rich person. Like he gets some fancy new drip, including diamonds embedded in his glasses. He and his friends are flying around on private jets,

and he starts renting this huge waterfront mansion in Miami that costs, wait for it, $68,000 a month. $68,000 a month for rent. And of course, he buys all the cars he's ever wanted. No, really, like, bro buys like 30 exotic cars. Like, damn, how much is he driving? He even got a Lamborghini with his name painted on the side.

He also goes out to clubs and gets bottle service everywhere, just because he can. Oh, and he doesn't buy the cheap bullshit bottle service. No, let me tell you how much this guy spends. Dude regularly goes out to the club and drops anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 a night. A night! He buys the most expensive champagne. He tips everyone. The staff's putting his name up in lights.

I mean, they love him because when the dude's there, he buys drinks all night. Why did a table come in tonight and spend $300,000 on bottles like it was nothing? And he always tips the staff well with money and alcohol. He even tipped me $2,000. When I tell you the amount of bottles he sent me that I took home, brand new, everything sealed. And of course, Malone doesn't forget about the ladies. I mean, he's got to try and buy their love, too. I mean, he'll buy a $50,000 burkin, which is like a purse.

He'll buy $50,000 purses and go to the club and just hand them out to pretty women like, hey, this is for you. I guess he's hoping they'll smash with him. I mean, some of the women later made TikToks about it. He comes towards me, and he's like, I got this four. you. Guys, I can't even make this shit up when I say that I just woke up to a broken in my bedroom because a man gave it to me in the club last night.

But I guess poor Malone ends up learning the hard way that not everyone can be bought, because at one point he tries to buy a pink Lamborghini Uris for some woman, supposedly they had dated before, and so he buys it and he texts her a picture of it at 2 a.m. I got you a present, we'll call it an early birthday gift, a thank you gift. I appreciate you so much. Uh, I'm taken once again. I don't care. I'm not gonna lie. For some reason, I love that she rejected him so hard, like something very satisfying about it. Anyway, despite that one L he took, he is still absurdly wealthy now.

I mean, he has the house and the cars he wants, and everyone at the club loves him. Bro is just living the dream. Until. Okay, real quick, there's one person in the story I forgot to introduce. So let's rewind. So Malone and his bros have just stolen 230 million dollars worth of Bitcoin. Bro, pro, I'm gonna spice out. Do you know how much money dollars? And they make it really hard to track by splitting it into different accounts and blah, blah, blah, blah, boring crypto stuff.

And at some point during all this, a guy gets a notification on his phone. This guy, Zach XBT. So Zach XBT gets an alert on his phone because I guess he gets an alert every time there's a larger than average crypto transaction on the blockchain. Now, who is Zach XBT? Well, Zach is a bit of a crypto enthusiast himself. And he's kind of a big deal on Twitter. 740,000 followers. Not bad.

And at one point in the past, Zach unfortunately got scammed out of $15,000 worth of crypto. And ever since then, he's decided to devote himself to catching crypto thieves and exposing shady NFT projects and stuff like that. And so Zach has caught on to the accounts run by Malone and his bros. And since every transaction on the blockchain is publicly viewable, he starts tracking the path of each transfer. So, by the time Malone has spent all this money in the club and bought a $250,000 car for a girl that doesn't want him,

Zach has been mapping out the path of all the stolen money. And at this point, he's pretty sure he knows who's behind it. And when he checks social media one day and sees this guy Malone flexing his wealth all over Instagram, he's like, boom, this is one of the guys who stole the crypto. Now, remember that screen recording of the chat I said would be important later? Well, one of the guys in Malone's friend group, and I don't know if he was snitching or what, but he actually sends that recording to Zach. And of course, it's audio of them celebrating stealing all that money.

Bro, pro, I'm gonna spice out. Do you know how much money got it? Not only that, the screen has information on it that identifies Malone and his bros. So this becomes very important evidence. And anyway, Zach XPT gets sent this information and I imagine he's like, sweet! And so he collects all of it and he sends it over to the FBI. And the FBI, they start investigating. And only a month after the heist first took place, boom,

federal agents swoop in and they raid Malone's home. And bam, they arrest him. And this is actual footage of him being arrested. And also, here's his mugshot. And they also arrest one of Malone's friends who was involved, but I couldn't find his mugshot anywhere. And one of Malone's other friends who was involved hasn't been charged, as of yet, so maybe he flipped on the others? I don't know. Regardless, Malone is charged with conspiracy

to steal and launder over $230 million in crypto, and he faces up to 20 years in prison. However, he hasn't been found guilty as he hasn't been to trial yet, so all of this is alleged. I'll keep you updated.