Overview
- Federal agents arrested 21‑year‑old Zyaire Dontaevious Zamarion Wilkins in North Lauderdale on Tuesday, July 14, and seized devices, three wallet seed phrases and charged him with conspiracy to obtain information by computer, a count that carries up to 10 years in prison.
- The FBI says Wilkins and co‑conspirators placed info‑stealing malware inside eight games that infected about 8,000 devices, compromised roughly 80 crypto wallets and enabled the theft of at least $220,000 from victims.
- Investigators allege the group used bots on Discord, Telegram, X and LinkedIn to find high‑value crypto holders and push them to download the infected titles while coordinating via Signal under the handle “Sibel.eth” and buying a remote access trojan for about $10,000.
- Agents traced stolen coins on‑chain to Bitrefill where more than 150 gift cards, mostly for Uber Eats, were bought and then matched via a subpoena to delivery records that tied purchases to Wilkins’ home and university addresses.
- The case underscores risks for casual crypto users who keep hot wallets or local seed phrases, raises questions about digital‑store review controls, and marks the first public criminal charging tied to the FBI’s earlier probe of malware‑laced games.