The U.S. Department of Justice has seized a cloud computing account that served as the technological backbone for the Cambodia-based Huione Group, a criminal marketplace accused of laundering billions of dollars in cryptocurrency fraud proceeds. The operation, announced on Tuesday, was carried out under the FBI’s ongoing Operation Riptide and follows last year’s designation of Huione Group by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) as a primary money laundering concern under the USA Patriot Act.
“Today’s seizure strikes a blow against one of the world’s most prolific criminal marketplaces,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. He described the seized infrastructure as “a technological backbone that allowed billions in fraud proceeds to be transferred, moved, and concealed,” particularly through scam centers in Southeast Asia.
Huione Guarantee, also known as Haowang Guarantee, operated Telegram channels that openly advertised stolen credit cards, identity data, malware proceeds, human trafficking services, and escrow for laundering cryptocurrency from romance and investment scams. The platform’s subsidiary, H-Pay Service PLC, has now been formally recognized as part of the Huione Group by U.S. authorities. Much of the underlying theft was attributed to cyber actors from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
According to the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report, Americans lost over $7.2 billion to cryptocurrency investment fraud alone last year, contributing to a total of nearly $21 billion in reported cybercrime losses across the United States. The seizure is expected to severely disrupt the group’s ability to process transactions and maintain user services, while also providing valuable intelligence for further investigations.
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic had previously revealed that, under financial pressure, Huione launched its own stablecoin, USDH, on Ethereum, BSC, and Tron. This coin was part of a suite of Huione-branded blockchain products, which also included a decentralized exchange, a native crypto wallet, and the Huione Chain (a.k.a. Xone) — a proprietary blockchain. These tools were designed to create an alternative payment rail outside the reach of traditional enforcement, but the DOJ’s direct action against the core cloud infrastructure now threatens their operational continuity.
