Overview
- The Treasury’s OFAC designated Xinbi Guarantee a significant transnational criminal organization on Sept. 9 and sanctioned two tech firms accused of providing messaging and wallet services that supported the marketplace.
- The Justice Department’s Scam Center Strike Force seized Xinbi Telegram channels and took two cryptocurrency wallets holding about $12 million while obtaining restraints that put more than $52 million of crypto beyond operators’ reach in a single-day operation.
- The U.S. Secret Service, using blockchain intelligence from Elliptic, froze roughly $52.8 million in USDT across 52 wallets that investigators traced to the Xinbi network.
- Authorities say Xinbi acted as an escrow-style marketplace where vendors sold fake investment sites, money‑laundering services and recruitment for scam compounds, and that the platform processed the equivalent of roughly $24 billion in fiat and crypto since 2022.
- Officials warn the disruption is significant but not final because operators have tried to migrate to encrypted apps and swap USDT into alternatives like USDD, so investigators will keep using sanctions, seizures and blockchain tracing to follow funds and pressure the network.