The U.S. Department of Justice has dealt a devastating blow to the infrastructure of the "crypto laundering" Huione Group.
The U.S. Department of Justice has officially announced the seizure of a cloud account used by entities of the notorious Huione Group to host servers supporting an entire ecosystem for laundering cryptocurrency funds obtained from large-scale fraud schemes and cybercrimes.
The seized account was a key element of the infrastructure that enabled the operation of numerous platforms and channels specializing in illegal financial transactions. The investigation established that the Huione Group ecosystem provided services for organizers of investment scams, theft of digital assets, trading of personal data, and support for fraudulent call centers. Notably, related Telegram channels openly advertised services for "money laundering" and the sale of stolen databases.
One of the Largest Centers of Crypto Crime
Huione Group has long been under close scrutiny by U.S. regulators. As early as 2025, the U.S. Treasury Department's FinCEN designated the company a "primary money laundering concern," effectively cutting it off from the U.S. financial system. According to the agency's estimates, from August 2021 to January 2025, at least $4 billion in illicit funds passed through the group's structures, including money from cryptocurrency fraud, cyberattacks by North Korean hackers, and other criminal schemes.
The ecosystem included projects such as the payment service Huione Pay, the cryptocurrency platform Huione Crypto, and the marketplace Haowang Guarantee (formerly Huione Guarantee), which analysts called the largest illegal online platform for servicing crypto scammers.
Pressure on Scammer Infrastructure Intensifies
The seizure of server infrastructure is the latest phase of a broad U.S. campaign against financial services supporting transnational fraud networks in Southeast Asia. The Justice Department emphasized that the goal of the operation is not merely to pursue individual criminals, but to completely dismantle the infrastructure that enables the entire crypto scam ecosystem to function.
It is worth noting that the scale of the problem is growing: according to Chainalysis, in 2025, over $154 billion was sent to illicit crypto wallets—a 162% increase compared to 2024. This confirms that combating such "crypto laundries" is becoming critically important for the entire industry.
Expert Comment: The confiscation of Huione Group's infrastructure is not just a tactical victory, but a demonstration that regulators are beginning to strike at the very "heart" of crypto crime—the infrastructure, rather than just individual wallets. However, given that billions of dollars flowed through the group and its ecosystem was deeply integrated into the shadow economy of Southeast Asia, such measures, while impressive, are only the first step in a long and difficult struggle. The real challenge is to prevent scammers from quickly migrating to new cloud services and platforms.