22-year-old pleads guilty to money laundering for $263 million crypto syndicate

The U.S. Justice Department announced today that a key figure in a $263 million social engineering scheme has pleaded guilty to charges.

Before U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, California resident Evan Tangeman, 22, admitted guilt to participating in a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) conspiracy by laundering over $3.5 million for the scheme. Tangeman is the ninth defendant to plead guilty in this investigation, the statement noted.

The social engineering enterprise ran its scheme from October 2023 to May 2025. The syndicate grew from a group of friends on online gaming platforms, scattered across California, Connecticut, New York, Florida, and abroad. The scheme stole around 4,100 BTC, valued at $263 million at the time. The same amount is currently worth $371 million.

The group, composed of hackers, organizers, target identifiers, callers, and residential burglars targeting hardware wallets, used stolen databases to target subjects of the attack. Hackers accessed websites and servers to gain crypto-related databases, while identifiers used the database to determine the most valuable targets.

“Callers were responsible for cold-calling victims and convincing them their accounts were the subject of a cyber-attack and the callers were attempting to help secure their accounts,” the indictment said.

The stolen cryptocurrency was used to purchase millions of dollars worth of nightclub services, luxury handbags, watches, cars, rental homes, private jet rentals and a team of private security guards.

Tangeman assisted the scheme’s members by using a bulk-cash converter to exchange the stolen cryptocurrency into cash, which the members used to obtain rental homes. He then used fake names on property leases, concealing the real owners. Tangeman’s sentencing is scheduled for April 24, 2026.

With Tangeman’s guilty plea, the court unsealed its second superseding indictment of the case, which charges three more defendants — Nicholas Dellecave, Mustafa Ibrahim and Danish Zulfiqar — who were recently arrested.