Elliptic data became key to closing Huione and Xinbi in Telegram

The Telegram messenger disconnected the 2 largest online marketplaces working in the shadow sector-Huione Guarantee and Xinbi Guarantee. Both resources were disabled on the basis of analytical data provided by Elliptic. These sites processed transactions in stablecoins in the amount of over $ 35 billion and were used for operations related to money laundering, selling stolen data, trading in people and even supply of torture tools.

Initially, resources like Silk Road and Alphabay, operating on the Tor network, were considered the largest illegal platforms in crypto space. However, in recent years, activities have moved to Telegram, where the audience exceeds a billion users, and the level of anonymity allowed criminal structures to switch to a new scale. The so-called Guarantee Markets, oriented mainly on the Chinese-language audience and serving fraudulent schemes in Southeast Asia, became especially noticeable.

Mechanics consists in providing a site where third parties place services: from falsification of documents to intimidation services and surrogate motherhood. The main currency of calculations was Stemblin USDT. All transactions were controlled by bots, deposit and escrow mechanisms were used, and the identification of the participants was excluded. It was this that ensured the safety and trust between sellers and buyers, despite the completely illegal nature of the activity.

Huione Guarantee, also known as Haowang Guarantee, has served transactions in the amount of over $ 27 billion since 2021, becoming the largest criminal online marketplace in history. The platform is closely connected with the financial group Huione Group from Cambodia. The second largest was Xinbi Guarantee, launched in 2022 and processing transactions in the amount of $ 8.4 billion. As part of the Elliptic investigations, it became known that not only fraudulent tools were sold through Xinbi, but also support services, threats and surrogate motherhood.

According to experts, the closure of Huione and Xinbi was the largest blow to the underground economy in digital space in history. If Telegram continues a similar policy, the guarantee-platform administrations will have to look for new distribution channels.

Author

Peter Ivanov