The US Department of Justice has seized $12 million in cryptocurrency from Xinbi Guarantee and sought restraints against 47 additional wallets believed to be connected to money laundering operations. According to the DOJ, its Scam Center Strike Force seized two crypto wallets containing approximately $12 million and sought restraints against another 47 wallets tied to suspected money laundering through Xinbi and vendors serving scam operators. The enforcement action, announced on September 9, placed more than $52 million in crypto beyond the reach of Xinbi and its vendor network. Tether assisted investigators with the operation, having separately frozen $39.3 million in USDT across 10 Tron addresses linked to Xinbi earlier this week, as reported by crypto.news.
Court action against Xinbi extended beyond its cryptocurrency infrastructure, with the US District Court for the District of Columbia authorizing the seizure of Telegram channels hosting the marketplace on September 7. According to the DOJ, the seized channels described Xinbi as a Chinese-language marketplace where vendors advertised services to operators of scam centers, including laundering money stolen through wire fraud, building custom websites for fraudulent investment schemes and recruiting workers for scam compounds in Southeast Asia. Xinbi served as an intermediary in transactions between vendors and their customers, holding funds intended for vendors until purchased services were delivered. Investigators traced funds belonging to US victims to specific vendors that advertised money laundering services and posted cryptocurrency addresses for payments in Xinbi's Telegram channels.
Tether's involvement in the Xinbi operation demonstrates the growing role of stablecoin issuers in cryptocurrency enforcement actions. As reported by Wired, Tether's CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company has worked with more than 340 law enforcement agencies across 67 countries, attributing more than $5 billion in frozen assets connected to suspected illicit activity to that cooperation. The company's ability to block specific USDT tokens held at identified addresses after receiving valid requests from law enforcement provides authorities with controls that don't exist for assets like Bitcoin. This marks the latest in a series of US cases where Tether has assisted investigators, including a $225.3 million cryptocurrency forfeiture case in June 2025 involving investment fraud affecting more than 400 victims.
According to TRM Labs, Xinbi Guarantee emerged on Telegram around 2022 and developed into one of Southeast Asia's largest illicit crypto marketplaces. The blockchain intelligence company estimates that the platform has processed approximately $24.2 billion in total transaction volume since its creation, with $12.1 billion in observed inflows since May 2025. TRM Labs had previously estimated that Xinbi had processed approximately $17.9 billion since mid-2025 as activity continued despite enforcement against Telegram-based marketplaces. The marketplace primarily serves Chinese-speaking users and operates through an escrow model, connecting merchants with buyers while providing transaction infrastructure with crypto commonly used for settlement. Elliptic research attributed at least $8.4 billion in USDT transactions to Xinbi since 2022, with the user base increasing from 119,000 in August 2024 to 233,000 by May 2025. A linked payments arm, Xinbi Pay, has processed another $6 billion, with most transactions flowing in Tether (USDT) on the TRON blockchain.
Despite enforcement measures, Xinbi has demonstrated significant resilience in continuing operations. According to TRM Labs, the platform resumed operations soon after Telegram removed thousands of channels associated with Xinbi Guarantee and Huione Guarantee in May 2025, moving parts of its operation away from Telegram toward SafeW messaging service and introducing NewPay, also known as XinbiPay, as a crypto wallet that did not require know-your-customer checks. The UK had already sanctioned Xinbi on March 26, freezing assets connected to the marketplace and cutting designated parties off from the country's financial system. The latest DOJ operation formed part of the Scam Center Strike Force's campaign, which has now restrained approximately $938 million linked to scam money laundering operations and expanded operations outside Southeast Asia, including a recent takedown of 13 scam centers in Madagascar where authorities dismantled 13 Chinese-run compounds and arrested nearly 400 people.
