New York, Tuesday, July 16, 2024 – Huione Guarantee, an online marketplace operated by Cambodian conglomerate Huione Group, has become a major facilitator of online scams in Southeast Asia, according to research by Elliptic. The platform has handled transactions exceeding $11 billion, largely linked to money laundering and cyber scams.
The report by Elliptic Research can be read here.
Elliptic’s research, leveraging blockchain analytics, traced cryptocurrency transactions on Huione Guarantee, identifying and labeling hundreds of crypto addresses associated with the platform and its merchants. This enables exchanges and businesses to screen transactions, preventing further laundering of illicit funds.
Primarily operating in Chinese, the marketplace uses numerous instant messaging app channels managed by different merchants.
These merchants offer services fundamental to cyber scams, including selling personal data, money laundering, and developing scam websites. Payments are mostly made in Tether, a cryptocurrency easier to track than traditional fiat flows.
Elliptic’s 2024 report also highlighted the use of artificial intelligence in scams, such as deepfake videos and discussions on the dark web about using AI to reverse-engineer crypto wallet seed phrases. These developments pose new challenges for security and law enforcement agencies.
The scale of these scam operations has increased over the past five years, partly due to merchants providing money laundering services and other scam-enabling tools. The research revealed that Huione Guarantee operates similarly to a darknet marketplace, with many transactions linked to illicit activity despite the platform’s claim of neutrality.
Huione Guarantee is closely linked to Huione Pay, a payments and foreign exchange business, and Huione International Payments, which is involved in laundering scam proceeds. The conglomerate’s connections to Cambodia’s ruling Hun family further complicate the situation, with reports of human trafficking and forced labor in scam compounds associated with the platform.
