22-year-old guy teamed up with friends to steal $245M in BTC

[MArsland]

Is 20 years prison sentence even enough for someone that committed such a crime, maybe it's enough if he can also return all those stolen Bitcoin to the victim. I just have this suggestion that any time these set of scammers is being caught, they should be made to return all those stolen Bitcoin to the victim or risk serving a lifetime prison sentence.  I think this could make other scammers to be afraid when they think of being caught if they commit such crime.

I agree that stolen assets should be returned to their owners as long as they are still there, but what if they have already been spent?

Then the matter of crime cannot be dictated simply because the punishment is severe or the sanction that the fraudster must return the total amount of bitcoins stolen does not automatically make the fraud disappear or afraid. After all, the fraudster knows the risk that even with the death penalty even the crime will not be silent.

Back to the owner of the asset that ultimately the prevention and safety of assets is the most important to ensure caution as the main responsibility.

[pawanjain]

It just shows how inexperienced and foolish they really are. Someone who is smart but is not already well connected and does not have infrastructure in place will take this kind of thing slowly. It would take them many years before they would be confident in their setup of laundering the money to buy a single luxury car. They would never do something like these foolish children because they are aware of how it raises suspicion and it increases the risk from many angles, even if all of the money was legal.

Now that's a very valid point there. Even if the money was legal and obtained from salary or business or something, even then it would have rang the bells of the authorities.
These authorities cannot bear a person enjoying too much and reach their destination with force to verify what they are spending is legit or not.
In this case, it wasn't and thus the culprit was caught. It's a good thing though, we need not worry if our money is legal.

[Miles2006]

Is 20 years prison sentence even enough for someone that committed such a crime, maybe it's enough if he can also return all those stolen Bitcoin to the victim. I just have this suggestion that any time these set of scammers is being caught, they should be made to return all those stolen Bitcoin to the victim or risk serving a lifetime prison sentence.  I think this could make other scammers to be afraid when they think of being caught if they commit such crime.

They never consider the possibility of being caught someday, who will commit such crime and not expect the force to sentence them in prison. I think they’re never with their right senses during the act instead they focus on the amount of money reason why they spend lavishly, if the 22 year old had worked hard for the money definitely he’ll not be spending recklessly.
I love the suggestion. regardless, other scammers don’t care when they’re not in the same position for a fact we can agree not all scammers get caught, returning the funds might be impossible just curious where they’ll get the money back while lifetime prison sentence is the best punishment for such crime.

[Y3shot]

Is 20 years prison sentence even enough for someone that committed such a crime, maybe it's enough if he can also return all those stolen Bitcoin to the victim. I just have this suggestion that any time these set of scammers is being caught, they should be made to return all those stolen Bitcoin to the victim or risk serving a lifetime prison sentence.  I think this could make other scammers to be afraid when they think of being caught if they commit such crime.

Scammers don’t value money; a scammer who scammed someone out of a large amount of money can end up spending it on worthless things in a very short time.

This is an amount of money that can make one stable for a lifetime, but scammers will spend it in the blink of an eye. If the scammers have spent the money on luxuries, it is best to sell the properties and return the funds to the victim, which will not even cover the exact amount that was stolen. Scams like this one deserve a long-term punishment because when victims are defrauded of such large amounts, it can cause depression that can lead to the loss of life.

[GeorgeJohn]

The victim is the caused of everything that happened to him, because i have never heard that someone stored a bitcoin into a Google drive, what was the victims thinking...and what's his objective to come up with such idea and decisions..this are the kind of questions we should be asking....Even to store keys in emails is very risk, and is not a good idea to do it, talk more of storing in Google drive...I may say it’s a lack of knowledge...

If the victim were informed of risks involved in keeping anything privacy in online, it won't have lost what he has, I think this is a lesson to anyone who has been doing such kind of bitcoin stored with Internet storage accessibility...I will not show any signs of sympathy to the victim, because what happened to him is based on gnorant.

[Dogedegen]

It just shows how inexperienced and foolish they really are. Someone who is smart but is not already well connected and does not have infrastructure in place will take this kind of thing slowly. It would take them many years before they would be confident in their setup of laundering the money to buy a single luxury car. They would never do something like these foolish children because they are aware of how it raises suspicion and it increases the risk from many angles, even if all of the money was legal.

Now that's a very valid point there. Even if the money was legal and obtained from salary or business or something, even then it would have rang the bells of the authorities.
These authorities cannot bear a person enjoying too much and reach their destination with force to verify what they are spending is legit or not.
In this case, it wasn't and thus the culprit was caught. It's a good thing though, we need not worry if our money is legal.

Authorities that is right, but also criminals! People that are smart try to be cautious with these things because all kinds of problems can arise when one starts showing wealth in excess. It is even more the case when the money is illegal, and when the whole thing does not make sense. Young people usually do not have access to this kind of money unless they have very rich parents that give them whatever they want, so this really stands out right away. It seems that they were not thinking at all, which also raises doubt on how smart their hacking activities were. Sometimes people wrongly associate the amount of money that is stolen with hacking capability or how smart the people that did it are, but we see in this example that this is not true.

The victim is the caused of everything that happened to him, because i have never heard that someone stored a bitcoin into a Google drive, what was the victims thinking...and what's his objective to come up with such idea and decisions..this are the kind of questions we should be asking....Even to store keys in emails is very risk, and is not a good idea to do it, talk more of storing in Google drive...I may say it’s a lack of knowledge...

You are making a very strange statement because we have seen this in the news come up many times, actually many people are storing wallets in the cloud some are even storing them on their desktop like those sticky notes. It is even worse than the cloud because it is even more vulnerable.

[Orpichukwu]

Even if it is 20 years, what about the losses suffered by the victims? That is really a large amount. It's just that, how could people be so careless as to give account access to others? I mean, if it was a small investment, it still makes sense that the investor might not have much knowledge to secure their wallet. But it is a large investment, I just think that wealthy people like that would also have a better understanding.

The way they prosecute some of these criminals sometimes is questionable and unclear to me. You will see someone steal a large sum and get a lesser punishment than someone who stole little or committed a lesser crime, or it’s based on the lawyer who defended the criminal and the bargain they got with the judge. In this case, some of the money can be recovered, but I still consider a 20-year sentence as being unfair considering the type of suffering they have put on the owner of that stolen bitcoin.

[Pandorak]

Malone Lam, a 22-year-old from Singapore, pleaded guilty to stealing $245 million worth of Bitcoin from a Washington resident. The incident occurred two years ago: his accomplices, posing as employees of Google and Gemini, tricked the victim into granting access to their Google Drive and stole 4,100 Bitcoin.
Lam then laundered the stolen funds, spending millions in a single month on thirty sports cars, mansions, and nightclubs.
Today he pleaded guilty, and now he faces up to twenty years in prison.

What a terrible way to lose Bitcoin, i can’t imagine how it must feel to find out that all the Bitcoin you owned is just gone.

As for the perpetrator, i can’t fathom how he managed to squander that money so quickly, thirty sports cars in just one month?? That’s insane. Maybe he felt like he’d just hit the jackpot with a fantastic sum. And the 20 year prison sentence, i think it’s well deserved, in fact it should be even longer than that. Considering the amount of Bitcoin stolen at current prices, it’s an extraordinary sum. If he can’t fully return the stolen Bitcoin to the victims, a sentence of 50–100 years might need to be considered, let him rot in prison. What a foolish way to waste his youth.

[Woodie]

You know very well that your most prized possession is stored on your Google drive and here comes a total stranger and the request for access to this safe and you give them all access to do whatever they like  I can only buy this story if you tell me the victim is actually a senior citizen because a middle-aged man that knows the value of what they have would have never granted the duo that access for whatever reasons!!!