US Treasury Sanctions $24B Scam Marketplace for Laundering Illicit Funds

The US Treasury Department has sanctioned Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language platform that has processed over $24 billion in digital assets and fiat currency since 2022. The platform was designated as a transnational criminal organization by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), along with two companies that supply its tools.

Xinbi's business model is built on facilitating scams, and it has inherited customers from Huione Pay after US regulators shut down the network. The platform's operators had been planning to migrate to a rival stablecoin called USDD, which is harder to freeze than Tether.

The Treasury Department seized Xinbi's infrastructure and digital-asset wallets, and 52 wallets holding $52.8 million in Tether were frozen on Tuesday. Xinbi's administrators told users that they 'strongly condemn' Tether's arbitrary freezing of addresses.