The 20-Year-Old Billionaires: How Two Kids Stole $230M and Spent it
On a humid morning in Miami, the quiet luxury of Hibiscus Island was shattered by the sound of battering rams and shouting federal agents.
The target wasn’t a drug lord or a cartel boss. It was a rental mansion occupied by a group of twenty-somethings in designer loungewear. Parked in the driveway was a collection of metal that looked less like a home garage and more like the Geneva Auto Show: a Lamborghini Revuelto, a Ferrari, and half a dozen other supercars gleaming in the Florida sun.
When the FBI agents entered the property, they found the wreckage of a three-week party that cost more than the GDP of a small island nation.
This is the story of the Miami Crypto Heist. In August 2024, two young hackers didn’t just breach a firewall; they socially engineered a victim out of $230 million (4,100 Bitcoin).
It was one of the largest individual thefts in American history. But the most shocking part wasn’t the crime—it was the stupidity of the aftermath. Instead of disappearing, they treated the stolen funds like an “infinite money glitch” in a video game, blowing millions on cars, watches, and clubs until the feds knocked on the door.
The Players: Who are “Greavys” and “Box”?
To the victim, they were a terrifying, faceless criminal organization. To the internet, they were just two loudmouth kids in a Discord server.
Malone Lam, a 20-year-old Singaporean national known online as “Greavys” or “Anne Hathaway,” was the ringleader. In the digital underworld, Lam was known not for his coding brilliance, but for his spending. He was the archetype of the “Crypto Zoomer”: arrogant, reckless, and desperate for validation.
His partner was Jeandiel Serrano, a 21-year-old from Los Angeles known as “Box” or “VersaceGod.”
The “Com” Subculture
Both men emerged from a murky internet subculture known as “The Com.” This isn’t the sophisticated world of state-sponsored Russian hackers. “The Com” is a chaotic playground of teenagers and young adults obsessed with SIM swapping (stealing phone numbers) and OG Usernames (hijacking rare handles on Instagram or Twitter).
It is a community defined by high-school drama with high-stakes consequences. They steal millions, not to build empires, but to flex on each other in group chats.
Lam and Serrano weren’t hiding in a bunker in Estonia. They were living in Los Angeles and Miami, traveling on private jets, and practically begging to be caught. Lam, in particular, had a fatal flaw: he couldn’t stop screen-sharing. He would frequently stream his crypto wallet to friends, showing off a balance that had suddenly jumped from zero to nine figures.
They were billionaires on the blockchain, but amateurs in the real world.
Here is the section detailing the heist itself. It highlights the simplicity of the attack, which is what makes it so terrifying.
The Heist: The “Google Support” Trick
When you imagine a $230 million cybercrime, you think of complex code, zero-day exploits, and encrypted servers hidden in a mountain. You don’t think of a phone call.
But on August 18, 2024, Malone Lam and Jeandiel Serrano proved that the weakest link in any security system is always the human being sitting behind the screen.
The Target: The “Whale”
Their target was not a bank or an exchange. It was a single individual—a creditor of the bankrupt crypto firm Genesis—who was sitting on a staggering fortune of 4,100 Bitcoin in a personal Gemini account. The hackers knew exactly who he was and how much he had.
The Method: “Hello, This Is Google”
The attack was a masterclass in high-pressure social engineering.
- The Spoof: First, they corrupted the victim’s caller ID. When his phone rang, it didn’t show an unknown number; it showed the official support number for Google.
- The Panic: When the victim answered, a voice on the other end (allegedly one of the co-conspirators) claimed to be from Google/Gemini security. They told him his account had been compromised by hackers from a foreign country and was actively being drained.
- The “Fix”: In the ensuing panic, the fake support agent offered a solution: the victim needed to download a remote desktop application immediately so the “technicians” could secure his account. Terrified of losing his fortune, the victim complied.
- The Drain: The moment the victim granted remote access, the game was over. Lam and Serrano’s team took control of his screen. While keeping him distracted on the phone, they accessed his private keys and two-factor authentication codes.
In a matter of minutes, they executed a series of transactions moving 4,100 Bitcoin—valued at over $230 million at the time—out of his wallet and into their control.
It was one of the largest individual thefts in history, executed without writing a single line of malicious code. They just asked for the money, and the victim, believing he was being saved, handed it to them.
The Vanity: 31 Cars and a $500k Bar Tab
Most criminals who steal a quarter of a billion dollars immediately try to disappear. They bury the money in shell companies, buy a quiet passport in a non-extradition country, and stay offline forever.
Malone Lam and Jeandiel Serrano did the opposite. They went shopping.
For three weeks, the pair treated the stolen Bitcoin like an infinite line of credit, embarking on a spending spree so violent and public that it looked less like money laundering and more like a nervous breakdown.
The “GTA” Garage
Lam didn’t just buy a car; he bought a dealership. According to prosecutors, he purchased 31 luxury vehicles in less than a month. He wasn’t collecting them; he was hoarding them. The collection included multiple Lamborghinis (including the new Revuelto), Ferraris, and other ultra-high-end exotics. Because they couldn’t possibly drive them all, many were found simply parked in the driveways of their rental homes, gathering dust like abandoned toys in a sandbox.
The $500,000 Night Out
In the Miami nightlife scene, “whales” are common. But Lam and Serrano were something else. They reportedly racked up tab after tab at exclusive clubs, spending upwards of $500,000 in a single night. They weren’t buying drinks; they were buying attention. They purchased Birkin bags in bulk to hand out to women they met, and wore Richard Mille watches—valued at over $250,000 each—as casual accessories.
The “Peel Chain” Failure
They attempted to launder the money using “peel chains”—a technique where large amounts of crypto are split into thousands of tiny transactions to confuse trackers. But their spending was so loud that the digital laundering didn’t matter. You can’t hide a blockchain trail when you are posting photos of the proceeds on Instagram.
They were living out a Grand Theft Auto fantasy: infinite money, fast cars, and zero consequences. But unlike the game, in real life, the “wanted” stars don’t just disappear if you drive fast enough.
The Hubris: Death by Discord
In the world of cybercrime, silence is survival. But for the “Com” generation, a crime didn’t happen unless you livestreamed it to your friends.
Malone Lam and Jeandiel Serrano didn’t get caught because the FBI cracked a complex encryption. They got caught because they couldn’t stop bragging.
The “Watch This” Moment
According to court documents and investigation logs, Lam frequently screen-shared his computer on Discord voice chats with other hackers. In a moment of monumental stupidity, he allegedly streamed his crypto wallet balance to his “friends” in real-time.
- The screenshots of a wallet holding $230 million instantly leaked out of the private chat and into the hands of investigators.
- They even recorded themselves during the heist, laughing as the victim panic-transferred his life savings.
Enter ZachXBT
While the boys were popping bottles in Miami, ZachXBT, the internet’s most feared crypto-sleuth, was quietly watching the blockchain. ZachXBT noticed the massive movement of funds and began connecting the on-chain data with the off-chain behavior. He matched the timestamps of the stolen funds moving to exchanges with the Instagram posts of Lam and Serrano flaunting new cars and watches.
He didn’t need a warrant; he just needed their Instagram stories. The digital trail led straight from the victim’s wallet to the dealership where Lam bought his Lamborghinis.
Game Over
On September 18, 2024, the party ended.
Bodycam footage from the raid shows a chaotic scene: confused young men in t-shirts being handcuffed on the lawn of a rental mansion, surrounded by the very supercars that gave them away.
The FBI seized roughly $9 million in cash, along with the fleet of vehicles and millions in luxury goods. But a significant portion of the Bitcoin remains unaccounted for—likely scattered across the blockchain or spent on experiences that can’t be refunded.
Malone Lam and Jeandiel Serrano treated real life like a session of Grand Theft Auto. They used cheat codes to get the money, spawned the fastest cars, and tried to outrun the police level. But in the real world, you can’t just paint the car to lose the heat.
They traded 30 potential years in federal prison for three weeks of feeling like kings. The cars are impounded, the mansions are empty, and the only thing they have left to flex is a federal indictment.
