Money launderer for crypto thieves given 5-year sentence

A California man was sentenced to more than five years in prison for his role in supporting a cybercriminal organization that stole about $260 million worth of cryptocurrency from victims.

Evan Tangeman, 22, was given a 70-month sentence last week after pleading guilty in December to RICO conspiracy charges. In his plea agreement, Tangeman admitted that he purchased homes and laundered stolen cryptocurrency on behalf of a cybercriminal organization dedicated to identifying and robbing high-value crypto owners.

Tangeman said he personally was involved in laundering at least $3.5 million, and prosecutors said he was a key figure in a group law enforcement called the Social Engineering Enterprise.

He rented and purchased lavish homes in California and Florida from 2023 to 2025, using fake names and other tactics to conceal that the gang planned to use the locations to conduct their thefts.

After several leaders of the group were arrested in 2024, Tangeman was one of the remaining figures who ordered members of the gang to destroy devices and take other actions to conceal their activity. 

“This criminal enterprise was built on greed so brazen it borders on the cartoonish. They stole millions, spent it on half-million-dollar nightclub tabs, Lamborghinis, and Rolexes,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. “But Evan Tangeman didn't just launder the money that fueled that lifestyle. When his co-conspirators were arrested, he moved to destroy the evidence. That is consciousness of guilt, and this office and the court have treated that accordingly." 

In addition to 70 months in prison, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered him to serve three years of supervised release. 

Tangeman is the ninth person to plead guilty as part of the investigation into the Social Engineering Enterprise — which gained prominence for its brazen attacks on cryptocurrency owners. 

Members of the group were previously charged with stealing more than $263 million worth of cryptocurrency from a victim in Washington, D.C.

The group was first formed in 2023 by 20-year-old Singaporean Malone Lam through friendships burnished on online gaming platforms. Members from California, Connecticut, New York and Florida participated in the operation, which included database hackers, organizers, target identifiers, callers, residential burglars and more.  

Through stolen databases and ones purchased off the dark web, the gang compiled lists of crypto owners and targeted them with both digital and physical thefts. 

Court documents showed that members at one point sent each other a database of over 1,000 targets containing emails and identifiers. Victims mentioned in Lam’s indictment lost between $600,000 and $14 million.

In several incidents, members called crypto holders pretending to be customer service or representatives from Apple and Google, eventually convincing them to hand over key account details that enabled crypto thefts. 

Tangeman turned the stolen cryptocurrency into fiat cash and worked with real estate agents to obtain large mansions that could be used to conduct the scams. 

For his laundering services, Tangeman was paid lavishly and given high-priced gifts. During police raids on his homes, law enforcement found a black 2022 Rolls Royce Ghost, valued at more than $300,000 and a black Porsche GT3 RS. 

Tangeman’s lawyers asked for a 52-month sentence, arguing that he has no prior convictions and is a young man who got swept into the cybercriminal lifestyle.

Prosecutors said Tangeman will likely never be able to pay back what was stolen from victims and wrote in the sentencing document that he “not only enabled his co-conspirators to dissipate millions in victim funds, but also benefited directly and indirectly from the thefts himself, including receiving exotic automobiles as compensation for his work and using commissions earned for laundering on luxury goods.”