$52 Million Crypto Freeze Hits Chinese Scam Marketplace Xinbi

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has restrained approximately $52 million in cryptocurrency linked to the Chinese scam marketplace Xinbi. The move comes after a multi-year tracking effort by Elliptic, which helped the Secret Service act on the information.

Xinbi is a Chinese-language marketplace that operates on Telegram and offers services to scam center operators, including custom fraud websites, money laundering, and recruitment for compounds in Southeast Asia.

The operation has been linked to at least $24 billion in transactions since 2022, making it second only to Huione Guarantee, which handled $31 billion before shutting down in 2025. Xinbi's payments arm, Xinbi Pay, has processed another $6 billion, mostly in Tether (USDT) on the TRON blockchain.

Prosecutors seized two Xinbi payment wallets containing about $12 million and moved against 47 more, according to the Justice Department, which credited Tether for its help. The Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Xinbi a significant transnational criminal organization on the same day, along with two entities that supported the marketplace.