Florida man arrested after allegedly stealing $220,000 in crypto using malware hidden in Steam Games — 8,000 devices infected

Florida man arrested after allegedly stealing $220,000 in crypto using malware hidden in Steam Games — 8,000 devices infected

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The complaint identifies the distribution channel only as a "popular digital distribution software company," but the games it lists, including BlockBlasters, Dashverse, Lunara , and PirateFi , match the titles named when the FBI began seeking victims of infected Steam games in March. The case is being prosecuted in Seattle federal court, near Valve 's headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, and Wilkins' arrest is the first publicly reported in the investigation.

The conspirators promoted the games on Discord, Telegram, X, and LinkedIn, and used bots to find users with large cryptocurrency holdings and message them directly, according to the complaint. Roughly 80 wallets were drained from 8,000 infections, a hit rate of about 1% consistent with that targeted approach. ZachXBT and vx-underground estimated BlockBlasters alone took more than $150,000 from between 261 and 478 victims, including $32,000 in donated cancer treatment funds taken from a Twitch streamer in September 2025.

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Wilkins faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted and was scheduled to appear in Fort Lauderdale federal court on July 15. Valve, whose storefront has seen a steady run of malware incidents over the past two years, including the Chemia Early Access game that shipped with three malware strains , hadn't responded to Local 10's request for comment as of publication.

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