The Xinbi crypto freeze has put a $52.8 million stash of cryptocurrency at the center of a U.S. crackdown on the online infrastructure behind global scams.
On September 8, the U.S. Secret Service froze funds connected to Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language marketplace operating through Telegram. The platform is accused of providing scammers with everything from stolen personal information to money-laundering services.
The action was built with help from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, which says it has monitored Xinbi and its wallet network for years. “Elliptic has been tracking Xinbi and its wallet infrastructure for several years, and our intelligence directly enabled the freezing action, as well as the sanctions imposed on Xinbi today by the United States,” the company said in a statement.
The freeze covered 52 wallets, all holding USDT, Tether’s dollar-pegged stablecoin. Two wallets containing about $12 million were seized under a warrant that was unsealed by the Department of Justice. The remaining wallets were frozen while authorities decide what happens next.
The Xinbi crypto freeze exposes crypto’s stranger side
Xinbi is not quite an illicit marketplace in the traditional sense. Think less digital flea market, more escrow service for criminals.
Vendors deposit cryptocurrency with the platform as a form of guarantee, allowing buyers to transact without relying entirely on trust. Products and services can include stolen personal data and systems designed to convert illicit proceeds into cash.
The arrangement also gives buyers a measure of protection: when someone claims they were cheated, the deposit can be used to compensate them. In a world where everyone involved is already operating outside the law, that kind of built-in consumer protection is an especially strange feature.
According to Elliptic, Xinbi and the merchants using it have processed at least $24 billion in transactions since 2022. That makes it the second-largest illicit online marketplace the firm has tracked, behind Huione Guarantee, which processed about $31 billion before Telegram shut it down in May 2025 following years of scrutiny.
Xinbi appears to have benefited from the vacuum left behind. Much of the activity flowing through these networks is linked to “pig butchering” scams, in which criminals spend weeks or months cultivating fake romantic or friendly relationships before steering victims toward fraudulent investment platforms.
Once inside those apps, victims see fabricated gains that encourage them to put in more money—until the operation drains their savings.
The U.S. Treasury escalated the pressure on September 9 by designating Xinbi as a transnational criminal organization, placing it in the same broad sanctions category used for drug cartels. Singapore-based SafeW Technology and Cambodia-based Anwen Technology were also sanctioned for supporting Xinbi.
The United Kingdom had already sanctioned Xinbi in March.
Xinbi, unsurprisingly, objected. The marketplace called the freeze “arbitrary” and said it would compensate customers affected by the action.
There is also a crypto-native twist to the response. Xinbi appears to be moving some of its remaining funds away from USDT and into USDD, a stablecoin associated with Tron founder Justin Sun and promoted as decentralized enough to lack a central issuer with the same ability to freeze wallets.
About $2.8 million in USDT has already been converted into USDD through a decentralized exchange, according to the reference data.
But the escape route has an awkward complication: part of USDD’s reserves are backed by USDT, the very stablecoin Xinbi is trying to leave behind.
The Xinbi crypto freeze was part of a wider operation by the DOJ’s Scam Center Strike Force, which also sent agents to Madagascar to assist local authorities in dismantling 13 Chinese-run scam compounds. Investigators processed evidence from nearly 400 arrests and more than 3,200 seized devices.
Since the task force was launched in November 2025, it has seized roughly $938 million in cryptocurrency linked to scams.
Xinbi’s frozen wallets are therefore more than another set of numbers in a law-enforcement announcement. They show how Telegram communities, stablecoins, blockchain wallets and organized fraud can fit together into an online economy that operates with its own peculiar version of trust—and how difficult it becomes to disappear when that economy leaves a blockchain trail.