Federal prosecutors said was called Zyaire Wilkins, a 21-year-old Florida resident and student, was charged with crimes that allegedly hid crypto-stealing malware inside video games uploaded to Steam. After the victims downloaded and installed the game, the malware silently took their passwords and credentials and emptied their crypto wallets. On Tuesday, the FBI arrested Wilkins, and on Wednesday prosecutors indicted him and unnamed others in the criminal conspiracy.
What happened to Steam?
According to the federal complaint, Wilkins and his alleged accomplices published a series of malware games over a period of about two years. Over the past two years, Wilkins and his colleagues have allegedly published malware-laden video games on Steam, including BlockBlasters, Dashverse, Lampy, Lunara, and PirateFi. Other reports of the FBI investigation mention other titles including Chemia, DashFPS and Tokenova.
The games weren’t broken shells – they were built to pass as real. All the games were made to look legitimate, until players could install them and play, but they all contained malware. This is what made the operation so effective: the victims had no reason to suspect that the subject they were playing was only taking their credit from behind.
How much money was stolen?
These numbers are very important in a scheme that is run by consumer gaming titles. Using the malware, the FBI said, Wilkins and his colleagues infected nearly 8,000 people, then hacked 80 cryptocurrency wallets to steal at least $220,000. crypto. The alleged campaign took place between May 2024 and February 2026.
The infected game was pushed hard on social media. The FBI said the group promoted the game on Discord, Telegram, X, and LinkedIn while using bots to identify users with large amounts of cryptocurrency and send messages encouraging them to install the game. In other words, the operation did not just wait for a random download – it seems that it deliberately hunted down the holders of valuable cryptos.
How did the FBI find him?
This is where the story gets interesting. Investigators followed the money from the scheme of Bitcoin wallet and in gift cards. Investigators put a name to the scheme by tracking the stolen Bitcoin from more than 150 gift cards, many of them to Uber Eats.
From there, the path led to Wilkins’ door. A request to Uber matched the credit cards and the Wilkins family’s home delivery account to his addresses at the University of West Florida. When agents searched a North Lauderdale home, they seized several weapons and three cryptocurrency wallet statements, one of which was a Monero wallet. The complaint also mentions his crypto history: Wilkins’ history shows $382,000 in cryptocurrency sent or received, according to the complaint.
What crimes are they being accused of?
Wilkins was arrested on Tuesday and charged with conspiracy to obtain information and computers to obtain private funds – a count that carries up to ten years in prison. The case will be heard in Seattle, near the Washington headquarters of the owner of Steam Valve. It’s the first arrest connected to the FBI’s broader investigation into Steam, which the bureau made public in March. Wilkins’ attorney has not commented on the allegations.
