Key Takeaways:
The Justice Department seized a cloud computing account that ran backend infrastructure for the Huione Group, a Cambodia-based conglomerate tied to billions in crypto money laundering, on June 23, 2026.
Americans reported more than $7.2 billion in cryptocurrency investment fraud losses in 2025, part of more than $20 billion in total cybercrime losses, according to the FBI.
Blockchain analytics firms Chainalysis and Elliptic helped trace the funds, a reminder that public ledgers can expose the laundering they are accused of enabling.
The Justice Department seized a cloud computing account that powered the Huione Group's money laundering operation on Tuesday, June 23, striking at one of the largest criminal marketplaces on the internet. Huione is a Cambodia-based conglomerate whose subsidiaries, prosecutors say, helped move the proceeds of crypto investment fraud, cyber heists, and online scams off blockchains and into the regular banking system.
The seized account hosted the backend for Huione Guarantee, also called Haowang Guarantee, which ran Telegram channels advertising stolen credit cards, identity data, malware proceeds, and even human trafficking services, alongside escrow for laundering crypto from romance and investment scams.
The numbers behind it are hard to ignore. Americans reported more than $7.2 billion in losses to cryptocurrency investment fraud in 2025 through the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, part of more than $20 billion in total cybercrime losses, a 26 percent jump in a single year.
"Today's seizure strikes a blow against one of the world's most prolific criminal marketplaces"
A. Tysen Duva, Assistant Attorney General, Justice Department Criminal Division
The case is part of Operation Riptide, the FBI's campaign against the infrastructure behind cybercrime, and it follows last year's Treasury FinCEN order naming Huione a primary money laundering concern and cutting it off from the U.S. financial system. This week FinCEN proposed adding H-Pay Service PLC, a Huione successor, to that order.
The most notable part of this is who did the tracing. Blockchain analytics firms Chainalysis and Elliptic, with Google's cybercrime team, followed the money across public ledgers and handed investigators the trail. The same openness that let criminals move funds is what let law enforcement find them, the pattern that also runs through the FBI's data-driven hunt for fraud suspects and the Justice Department's wider national fraud enforcement push. Trust kept this hidden for years. The ledger did not.
People Also Ask
What is the Huione Group?
Huione is a Cambodia-based conglomerate whose subsidiaries operated Huione Guarantee, an online marketplace U.S. authorities link to laundering billions in crypto fraud and scam proceeds.
What did the DOJ seize from Huione?
The Justice Department seized a cloud computing account that hosted backend infrastructure for Huione's marketplace, disrupting a service criminals used to move and conceal funds.
How much has crypto fraud cost Americans?
Americans reported more than $7.2 billion in cryptocurrency investment fraud losses in 2025, part of more than $20 billion in total cybercrime losses, according to the FBI.
How do investigators trace laundered cryptocurrency?
Analytics firms like Chainalysis and Elliptic follow transactions across public blockchains, letting law enforcement track stolen funds even when criminals try to hide them.
Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs; The Block; FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center; Treasury FinCEN.