- A wallet with $29.6 million worth of USDT stablecoins linked to the internet marketplace Huione Guarantee been blacklisted by Tether.
- A report published last week by the analytics firm Elliptic said that criminals have used Huione to launder billions of dollars.
- ZachXBT, an on-chain investigator, discovered that Huione has received at least $35 million linked to the most recent DMM Bitcoin exchange theft.
According to on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, who goes by moniker ZachXBT, Tether blacklisted a wallet over the weekend that contained $29.6 million worth of USDT stablecoins related to Huione Guarantee, a Cambodian marketplace purportedly associated to a multibillion dollar online scam economy.
Of that total, at least $14 million is connected to the well-known hack of the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange DMM Bitcoin, which saw an unapproved fund withdrawal in early June that resulted in an estimated $300 million loss. According to ZachXBT, Huione Guarantee has been used to launder almost $35 million related to that exploit.
It is believed that the attack was carried out by Lazarus Group, who is arguably the most active group of crypto protocol hackers. ZachXBT said on X that parallels in off-chain signs and money laundering methods raise the possibility that Lazarus Group is the hacker.
The following is a summary of the money-laundering process for the DMM Bitcoin hack monies sent to Huione: 1) Use the hack to add Bitcoin to the mixer; 2) Take Bitcoin out of the mixer 3) Use THORChain, Threshold, or Avalanche bridge to transfer money from Bitcoin to Ethereum or Avalanche. 4) Exchange USDT for Tron using SWFT 5) According to ZachXBT, send USDT to Huione.
According to Reuters on Monday, the connected Huione Pay received cryptocurrency worth at least $150,000 from a wallet connected to Lazarus. Alleged links exist between Huione Group and the ruling family of Cambodia.
According to a research published last week by the blockchain analytics company Elliptic, Huione merchants have been promoting a variety of illegal activities, including money laundering. After tracking $11 billion in transactions since the market’s introduction three years ago, the company discovered that a large portion of those transactions had been laundered through online frauds like cryptocurrency schemes and pig butchering.
According to ZachXBT, Huione has grown to be a significant nexus for illegal money in South East Asia, mostly used by gangs that engage in pig butchering. I discovered last year that Huione received millions from the $31 million Fintoch investment Ponzi operation.
In addition, more than 500 Bitcoin, Tron, and Ethereum addresses were made public by the investigator, who is using them to trace the financial movements from the DMM Bitcoin breach.
Disclaimer : This article was created for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. An asset’s past performance does not predict its future returns. Before making an investment, please conduct your own research, as digital assets like cryptocurrencies are highly risky and volatile financial instruments.
