Money Launderer Sentenced to 70 Months Over $263M Crypto Social-Engineering Scheme

A 22-year-old California man was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison Friday for laundering millions of dollars in stolen cryptocurrency proceeds for a “multi-state criminal enterprise” that stole more than $263 million.

Advertisement

Evan Tangeman of Newport Beach was also also ordered to serve three years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.

Tangeman pleaded guilty to participating in a RICO conspiracy in December 2025, admitting he laundered at least $3.5 million for a criminal enterprise that allegedly stole more than $263 million in cryptocurrency. The organization operated from October 2023 through at least May 2025, growing from friendships developed on online gaming platforms, according to court documents.

His admission marked the ninth guilty plea secured in this investigation. When law enforcement searched Tangeman’s residence, they seized vehicles including a 2022 Rolls Royce Ghost valued at more than $300,000 and a Porsche GT3 RS.

The stolen cryptocurrency was “built on greed so brazen it borders on the cartoonish,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said, adding that they, “stole millions, spent it on half-million-dollar nightclub tabs, Lamborghinis, and Rolexes.” Members of the enterprise purchased luxury homes valued between $4 million and nearly $9 million in Los Angeles and Miami, paying monthly rental costs ranging from $40,000 to $80,000.

Prosecutors emphasized that Tangeman’s crimes extended beyond money laundering to active obstruction of justice. “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,” Pirro said in the same statement.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which prosecuted the case, highlighted how the defendant’s attempts to cover his tracks influenced the sentencing decision.

The Tangeman sentencing represents the latest development in federal prosecutors’ crackdown on cryptocurrency-enabled financial crimes. In the same $263 million social-engineering scheme, eight other defendants have previously pleaded guilty to related charges.

Federal authorities have intensified enforcement against crypto money laundering operations, with the FBI recently seizing a platform allegedly used to launder $70 million from ransomware attacks. The government has also pursued a teenager who pleaded guilty to a $245 million Bitcoin heist, highlighting law enforcement’s focus on high-value crypto theft cases.