US Slams Huione Group in $4B Crypto Laundering Crackdown—Another ’Trust Us, We’re Compliant’ Moment for the Industry

Federal authorities just dropped the hammer on Huione Group, alleging it operated a sprawling $4 billion crypto laundering network. Because nothing says ’financial innovation’ like old-school money laundering with a blockchain veneer.

The DOJ’s move exposes yet another gap in crypto’s self-policing fantasy—turns out, when you build systems to bypass banks, criminals might use them to bypass laws too. Who could’ve predicted?

This isn’t your grandma’s offshore account scheme. Huione’s operation allegedly leveraged crypto’s borderless nature to move dirty money at scale—proving decentralized tech can decentralize crime just as efficiently as it decentralizes finance.

While the usual suspects will cry ’isolated incident,’ regulators now have fresh ammo to push for stricter oversight. Because at $4 billion, this isn’t a bug—it’s a feature the industry keeps pretending it’ll patch later.

Over $4 billion laundered

FinCEN’s investigation claims that Huione Group processed over $4 billion in suspicious transactions between August 2021 and January 2025.

Of this amount, at least $37 million reportedly came from North Korean-linked hacks, $36 million from crypto investment scams, and nearly $300 million from other online frauds.

US authorities believe the group operates a network of companies that serve different roles in its laundering operations.

These include Huione Pay, a fiat payment processor; Huione Crypto, a virtual asset service; and Haowang Guarantee, a marketplace dealing in illegal goods and services. The network has even issued its stablecoin to support transactions across these platforms.

Despite public evidence of widespread abuse, Huione entities lacked visible anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) policies. FinCEN noted that Huione failed to detect suspicious transactions, including one instance where it unknowingly received funds tied to a North Korean cyberattack.

The platform appears to operate outside typical oversight or regulations, similar to historical darknet marketplaces like Silk Road.