Ninth Defendant Pleads Guilty in $263M Crypto Theft Scheme
Evan Tangeman, 22, of California, pled guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to racketeering conspiracy as part of the Social Engineering Enterprise (SE Enterprise), a RICO-designated crypto-theft ring. Tangeman admitted to laundering at least $3.5 million and faces sentencing on April 24, 2026.
The SE Enterprise is tied to more than $263 million in stolen Bitcoin from a Washington, D.C. victim and hundreds of millions more from other targets. About 4,100 BTC were siphoned in the DC attack, worth $263 million at the time and now valued at over $370 million.
A second superseding indictment unsealed in the case added three defendants—Nicholas (Nic) Dellecave, Mustafa (Krust) Ibrahim, and Danish (Danny) Zulfiqar—each charged with RICO conspiracy. The indictment states the SE Enterprise began no later than October 2023 and operated through at least May 2025.
The SE Enterprise involved a range of roles including database hackers, organizers, target identifiers, callers posing as support staff for exchanges and email providers, money launderers, and in-person burglars who stole hardware wallets.
Tangeman aided in converting stolen cryptocurrency to bulk fiat, helped secure luxury rental homes under false identities, and assisted Malone Lam in collecting about $3 million in cash after the theft. He also monitored home-security feeds during an FBI raid and instructed another member to recover and/or破.
The prosecution is using a RICO framework to treat the SE Enterprise as a single criminal organization rather than isolated hacks, allowing charges of fraud, laundering, and related violence under one theory.
Malone Lam and co-defendant Jeandiel Serrano were arrested in September on fraud and money-laundering charges after investigators traced funds through mixers and peel chains, with crypto sleuth ZachXBT aiding in the tracing.
