U.S. authorities freeze $52 million in USDT linked to Telegram marketplace Xinbi Guarantee

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Scam Center Strike Force has moved against Xinbi Guarantee, a Telegram-based marketplace that the Treasury says processed more than $24 billion in digital assets and fiat since about 2022. For PSPs and crypto businesses, the useful detail is simple: Tether helped with the investigation, OFAC designated the venue as a significant transnational criminal organization, and U.S. authorities are now comfortable freezing wallets and seizing channels at the platform level.

1. The Scam Center Strike Force seized two crypto wallets that Xinbi used to receive payments for service providers. Those wallets held about 12 million USDT. U.S. authorities also blocked 47 additional wallets on suspicion of ties to money laundering through Xinbi and sellers servicing scammers.
2. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia approved the seizure of the Telegram channels used to operate the marketplace. According to the U.S. authorities, vendors used those channels to advertise crypto laundering services, websites for investment fraud, and recruitment of staff for scam centers in Southeast Asia.
3. OFAC added Xinbi Guarantee to the sanctions list as a significant transnational criminal organization. The same measures also hit SafeW Technology and Anwen Technology, which U.S. authorities say provided the platform with technological and financial services.
4. The Treasury’s version of the story is that Xinbi has been running since around 2022 and moved more than $24 billion in digital assets and fiat currencies. The platform was allegedly used by North Korean hackers and by entities linked to the sanctioned Cambodian company Prince Group.
5. The case sits in the same enforcement lane as another recent U.S. move: the FBI previously seized more than $560,000 in cryptocurrency that the Justice Department said was meant to fund Hamas.

For high-risk payment firms, the operational point is not just the sanctions designation. The combination of wallet freezes, Telegram channel seizures, and cooperation from a major stablecoin issuer shows how quickly a marketplace can become unbankable once it lands in a U.S. enforcement file.