The U.S. Department of Justice has dismantled the cloud infrastructure of the crypto laundering operation Huione Group: a blow to $4 billion in illegal turnover.
The U.S. Department of Justice has dealt a serious blow to the infrastructure of cryptocurrency money laundering. The agency officially announced the seizure of a cloud account used by Huione Group entities to host servers involved in the transfer and legalization of funds obtained from crypto scams and other forms of cybercrime.
The seized account supported the operation of a number of platforms and channels specializing in illegal financial transactions. The investigation established that the Huione Group ecosystem provided services to organizers of investment fraud, cryptocurrency thefts, personal data trading, and other types of cybercrime. In particular, related Telegram channels actively advertised services for money laundering, selling stolen data, and supporting fraudulent call centers.
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 as 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 illegal funds passed through the group's structures. This amount includes money from cryptocurrency fraud, cyberattacks by North Korean hackers, and other criminal schemes.
The ecosystem included well-known services such as the payment service Huione Pay, the cryptocurrency platform Huione Crypto, and the marketplace Haowang Guarantee (formerly Huione Guarantee). Analysts called the latter the largest illegal online platform for servicing crypto scammers.
Pressure on fraudsters' infrastructure is intensifying
The seizure of server infrastructure is another step in the U.S. broad campaign against financial services that support transnational fraud networks in Southeast Asia. The Justice Department emphasized that the operation's goal is not only to prosecute individual criminals but also to completely destroy the infrastructure that supports the entire crypto scam ecosystem.
It is worth noting that in 2025, the volume of illegal crypto assets reached a record $154 billion, a 162% increase from 2024. These data from the Chainalysis report confirm that combating giants like Huione Group is becoming critically important for preserving the legitimacy of the crypto market. In my view, this precedent could mark the beginning of a new wave of more aggressive actions by regulators aimed at eliminating infrastructure, rather than simply prosecuting individual players.