The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday sanctioned Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language marketplace it labeled a transnational criminal organization, while the Justice Department moved the same day to seize the platform’s infrastructure and digital-asset wallets. Treasury said Xinbi has processed more than $24 billion in digital assets and fiat currency since roughly 2022, and said its users have reportedly included North Korean hackers and entities already under U.S. sanctions. Treasury also tied Xinbi’s growth directly to earlier action against Huione Pay. After the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network moved against Huione Pay, cybercriminals shifted to Xinbi, which Treasury said kept offering substantially similar services to an overlapping customer base. Around June 2025, as law enforcement scrutiny increased, Xinbi began moving its merchants and money-laundering networks to the encrypted messaging app SafeW and launched a wallet called XinbiPay. The crackdown started before the sanctions announcement. On Tuesday, 52 wallets holding $52.8 million in USDT were frozen based on intelligence Elliptic provided to the Secret Service. The Justice Department then seized two of those wallets, holding about $12 million, and a court also authorized the seizure of Telegram channels hosting the marketplace. According to Elliptic, Xinbi administrators condemned Tether’s address freezes and said they were shifting to USDD, a Tron-based stablecoin without a similar freeze function.

The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has sanctioned Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language scam marketplace, and added two companies that allegedly provided technical services to the platform. In a Sept. 9 notice, Treasury said the marketplace had handled more than $24 billion in digital assets and fiat currency since launching in 2022. The action went beyond a sanctions listing: Treasury said the Department of Justice’s scam compound task force seized infrastructure and digital asset wallets used by Xinbi Guarantee on the same day. Treasury described Xinbi Guarantee as an intermediary platform linking transnational criminal groups and merchants, allowing scam compound operators to buy goods and settle transactions while offering escrow services. It also said the platform had been used by North Korean hackers and by multiple sanctioned actors, including entities tied to the Jinbei Group and the Huione Group. Treasury said that as enforcement pressure increased, Xinbi Guarantee began moving merchants and money-laundering networks around June 2025 to SafeW, an end-to-end encrypted messaging app developed by Singapore-based SafeW Technology Co., Ltd. Around the same period, it launched XinbiPay, also known as the NewPay Wallet, developed by Cambodia-based Anwen Technology Co., Ltd. Both firms were designated for materially assisting or providing technological support to Xinbi Guarantee.

The UK has barred Xinbi from its crypto market, freezing related activity across exchanges, custodians, and payment rails. The move comes as international enforcement, including the FBI and Thai police, has already frozen $580 million in crypto tied to scam groups.