FBI Arrests Florida Student for Hiding Crypto-Stealing Malware in Steam Games
The FBI arrested a 21-year-old accused of hiding crypto-draining malware in Steam games, stealing $220,000 from roughly 80 wallets. Here's how it happened.
Federal prosecutors have charged a 21-year-old Florida resident and student, Zyaire Wilkins, over an alleged scheme that hid crypto-stealing malware inside video games uploaded to Steam. Once victims downloaded and installed the games, the malware quietly harvested passwords and personal data and drained their crypto wallets. On Tuesday, the FBI arrested Wilkins, and on Wednesday prosecutors accused him and a number of unnamed co-conspirators of hacking crimes.
What actually happened on Steam?
According to a federal criminal complaint, Wilkins and his alleged partners published multiple malware-laced games over roughly two years. Over the past two years, Wilkins and his partners allegedly published several malware-laden video games on Steam, including BlockBlasters, Dashverse, Lampy, Lunara, and PirateFi. Some reporting on the broader FBI investigation lists additional titles including Chemia, DashFPS and Tokenova.
The games weren't broken shells — they were built to pass as the real thing. All the games were designed to look legitimate, to the point that players could install them and play them, but they all contained malware. That's what made the operation effective: victims had no obvious reason to suspect the title they were playing was siphoning their credentials in the background.
How much crypto was stolen?
The numbers are significant for a scheme run through consumer gaming titles. Using that malware, says the FBI, Wilkins and his accomplices infected around 8,000 victims, and then hacked around 80 cryptocurrency wallets to steal at least $220,000 worth of crypto. The alleged campaign ran between May 2024 and February 2026.
The infected games were pushed hard across social channels. The FBI said the group promoted the games on Discord, Telegram, X, and LinkedIn while using bots to identify users with large cryptocurrency holdings and send targeted messages encouraging them to install the games. In other words, the operation didn't just wait for random downloads — it appears to have deliberately hunted high-value crypto holders.
How did the FBI track him down?
This is where the case gets almost comical. Investigators followed the money out of the scheme's Bitcoin wallet and into gift cards. Investigators put a name to the scheme by following stolen Bitcoin to more than 150 gift cards, most of them spent on Uber Eats.
From there, the trail led straight to Wilkins' door. A subpoena to Uber matched the cards to an account with deliveries at Wilkins' family home and his addresses at the University of West Florida. When agents searched the North Lauderdale residence, they seized several devices and three cryptocurrency wallet seed phrases, one belonging to a Monero wallet. The complaint also notes his crypto history: Wilkins' transaction history showed $382,000 in cryptocurrency sent or received, per the complaint.
What charges does he face?
Wilkins was arrested Tuesday and charged with conspiracy to obtain information by computer for private financial gain — a count that carries up to a decade in prison. The case is being prosecuted in Seattle, near the Washington headquarters of Steam owner Valve. It's the first arrest tied to the FBI's broader Steam malware investigation, which the bureau went public with back in March. Wilkins' attorney has not commented on the allegations.
