Miami police arrest crypto scammers behind $243m theft

Los Angeles law enforcement has arrested at least two people involved in a $243 million social engineering attack launched against a single creditor at Genesis.

In August, three scammers identified as Malone Iam, Veer Chetal, and Jeandiel Serrano defrauded a single Genesis Global creditor of approximately $250 million by impersonating a Gemini customer support representative. The investigation, led by crypto detective ZachXBT, uncovered multiple videos of the trio sharing the loot and exulting over the successful theft.

In a video collected by the online sleuth, one of the perpetrators shouted “I’m gonna bounce” after the group received around 4,064 Bitcoin (BTC) from the deceived Genesis plaintiff. With the help of other bad actors, the funds were distributed across more than a dozen exchanges and on-chain trading venues, including Binance, eXch, and Thorswap.

The hackers also traded the stolen wealth between Bitcoin, Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Monero (XMR) to hide their digital footprint. After the heist, members of the hacking trio went on a spending spree, splurging at Los Angeles clubs and buying luxury cars in Miami.

ZachXBT requested assistance from the Binance Security Team, along with blockchain forensics experts CF Investigators and ZeroShadow, and as a result, $9 million worth of stolen assets were frozen.

The victim also recovered nearly $500,000 and worked closely with experts on the investigation, ZachXBT said in an X-thread on Sept. 19. Iam and Serrano, two-thirds of the original scammer trio, were arrested in Los Angeles on Sept. 18.

According to ZachXBT, large on-chain transactions at the time of the arrests suggest that local police seized more funds from the suspects. At press time, the whereabouts of Chetal, the last member of the group yet to be arrested, remained unknown.

1/ An investigation into how Greavys (Malone Iam), Wiz (Veer Chetal) and Box (Jeandiel Serrano) stole $243 million from a single individual last month through a highly sophisticated social engineering attack, resulting in multiple arrests and the freezing of millions of dollars in proceeds. pic.twitter.com/dcY1e9xsPd

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) September 19, 2024

Genesis, a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, owed $4 billion to 100,000 creditors and had liabilities of around $10 billion. The crypto lender was one of several businesses caught up in the fiasco involving crypto giants FTX and Three Arrows Capital, which collapsed after Do Kwon’s Terraform blockchain ecosystem collapsed.