- A Florida man is accused of running a Steam malware scheme that stole crypto.
- The scheme infected about 8,000 devices and stole at least $220,000 from wallets it broke into.
- A cancer fundraiser streamer lost more than $32,000 after downloading one infected game.
- Uber Eats gift card purchases helped trace the suspect.
- He faces up to 10 years in prison on a federal charge.
The FBI says a 21-year-old Florida man, Zyaire Wilkins, helped run a scheme that hid malware inside Steam games. Agents say the scheme infected about 8,000 people's devices and broke into about 80 crypto wallets, stealing at least $220,000. The thefts ran from May 2024 until February this year, according to a federal complaint. Wilkins was arrested at his home in North Lauderdale, Florida, in July.
Steam malware conspiracy arrest
Wilkins and others marketed the infected games on Discord, Telegram, X and LinkedIn, according to the complaint. Agents say they used bots to find people with large crypto holdings and sent them messages pushing the games. Once someone installed the malicious update, the malware grabbed their logins and wallet data and sent it to the attackers.
One of the games, BlockBlasters, was a free platformer that picked up hundreds of positive reviews on Steam. Its maker, Genesis Interactive, pushed an update in August 2025 that quietly added the malware. The game was removed from Steam soon after security researchers flagged it as suspicious.
A streamer named Raivo Plavnieks, who goes by RastalandTV, was live raising money for treatment of stage 4 sarcoma, a type of cancer. A viewer talked him into downloading BlockBlasters during the stream. The malware drained more than $32,000 from his crypto wallet, according to BleepingComputer. A crypto influencer, Alex Becker, later sent Plavnieks $32,500 to cover the loss.
BlockBlasters streamer donation theft
Investigators say they traced the stolen crypto to more than 150 gift cards, most of them for Uber Eats. Delivery records tied those cards to addresses linked to Wilkins, including his home and a college address in Florida, according to the complaint. Agents also found Signal chats linking Wilkins, using the handle Sibel.eth, to the person who built the malware.
Wilkins faces a federal charge of conspiracy to obtain information by computer for private financial gain, which carries up to 10 years in prison. He refused to speak with agents after his arrest, according to the complaint. The case is in federal court in Seattle. Valve, the company that runs Steam, is based in nearby Bellevue, Washington.
