They Stole $263M in Crypto and Dropped $500K in One Night. One Guy Washed It All.

A Newport Beach man gets nearly six years for washing stolen crypto through LA mansions and Lamborghinis inside a $263M theft ring born on gaming platforms.

Evan Tangeman, 22, of Newport Beach, California, was sentenced Friday in Washington D.C. to 70 months in federal prison for his role in a cryptocurrency money laundering operation tied to one of the more audacious theft rings federal prosecutors have filed on in years. The criminal enterprise, per the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, stole over $263 million in cryptocurrency from a single victim.

He converted the stolen crypto into cash. Then came the mansions.

Gaming Friendships Built a $263M Criminal Machine

The enterprise had a logic to it, even if that logic mostly served the people spending the money. It grew out of friendships formed on online gaming platforms — members spread across California, Connecticut, New York, Florida, and locations abroad. According to the DOJ press release, the operation was running no later than October 2023.

Tangeman’s job was specific. He converted stolen cryptocurrency into fiat currency and worked with real estate agents in Los Angeles to secure rental homes for enterprise members. Monthly rents ran between $40,000 and $80,000. The members renting them were unemployed young men, often under 20. None had a legitimate source of income. That made the mansions harder to explain, not easier.

Some properties were valued at up to nearly nine million dollars. When the group relocated to Miami in September 2024, Tangeman arranged housing there too.

$500K Nightclub Tabs and a Lamborghini as Direct Payment

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro described the operation as “built on greed so brazen it borders on the cartoonish.” Her office detailed how the enterprise spent stolen funds: nightclub tabs reaching half a million dollars per night, luxury watches priced between $100,000 and over $500,000 each, exotic cars ranging up to $3.8 million, and luxury handbags handed out at parties.

Co-defendant Malone Lam arranged a widebody Lamborghini Urus for Tangeman as direct compensation. That was payment, not a bonus.

When agents executed a search warrant on Tangeman’s residence, they found and seized a black 2022 Rolls Royce Ghost valued at more than $300,000. A white and black Porsche GT3 RS sat alongside it. The group had a kind of professionalism about the spending — which was also the problem.

Tangeman, who went by aliases including “E,” “Tate,” and “Evan|Exchanger,” admitted to laundering at least $3.5 million for enterprise members. He benefited directly through the exotic cars and used laundering commissions on luxury goods.

The enterprise also included database hackers, callers, organizers, target identifiers, and residential burglars who physically targeted hardware cryptocurrency wallets. Tangeman kept the stolen funds moving.

He Didn’t Just Launder the Money

When co-defendants Lam and Jeandiel Serrano were arrested and the scale of the fraud surfaced publicly, Tangeman took action. He directed co-defendant Tucker Desmond to destroy digital devices belonging to enterprise members. Pirro’s office noted this explicitly: “That is consciousness of guilt, and this office and the court have treated that accordingly.”

Tangeman pleaded guilty December 8, 2025, before U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to participating in a RICO conspiracy. His was the ninth plea produced by the investigation. Judge Kollar-Kotelly added three years of supervised release on top of the prison term.

The FBI’s Washington Field Office and the IRS-Criminal Investigation D.C. Field Office led the investigation. FBI offices in Los Angeles and Miami provided operational support, as did U.S. Attorney’s Offices in California’s Central District, the Southern District of Florida, and the District of New Jersey. Assistant U.S. Attorney Will Hart of the Fraud, Public Corruption, and Civil Rights Section prosecuted. The case number is 24cr417.

With crypto crime hitting $154 billion in illicit volume in 2026, federal enforcement on laundering networks has sharpened across jurisdictions. Nine pleas. The government wouldn’t say how many more it expects.