US Treasury Cracks Down on Cambodian Firm Behind $70 Billion Crypto Scam

The U.S. Treasury has cracked down on Huione Group, a financial services conglomerate in Cambodia, for enabling money laundering operations of the Prince Group, a transnational criminal organization that targeted Americans with romantic fraud scams.

As part of this effort, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated nine individuals and 26 entities linked to the Prince Group, while the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) amended an earlier rule to include Huione Group's activities.

The U.S. Treasury also announced that it would block Huione from accessing U.S. financial markets and ordered banks to freeze any assets related to the company.

Chainalysis, a blockchain auditing firm, reported that Huione Guarantee, a peer-to-peer marketplace operated by Huione Group, processed over $70 billion in crypto over the last 5 years, providing illicit services to users and facilitating money laundering for the Prince Group.

The FBI seized the cloud computing accounts used by Huione to host its backend systems, disrupting the company's ability to operate and dismantle the global scam market.