Secret Service Freezes $52.8 Million in Crypto Tied to Telegram Bazaar Behind Global Scams

U.S. Secret Service agents froze $52.8 million in Tether (USDT) held in 52 cryptocurrency wallets on September 8, targeting accounts tied to Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language Telegram marketplace that acts as an escrow service for scammers. The freezes began at 8am UTC and were based on tracing and wallet infrastructure intelligence supplied by blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, which said it has monitored Xinbi for several years and that its findings enabled both the freezes and subsequent U.S. sanctions.

Two of the frozen wallets, holding about $12 million combined, were seized outright under a Department of Justice warrant unsealed in connection with the action; the remaining funds were frozen pending further measures. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Xinbi on September 9 as a “significant transnational criminal organization,” a designation used for major criminal groups, and sanctioned two firms—SafeW Technology (Singapore) and Anwen Technology (Cambodia)—for supporting Xinbi’s operations. The U.K. had already sanctioned Xinbi in March.

Blockchain investigators say Xinbi has handled at least $24 billion in transactions since 2022, making it the second-largest illicit online marketplace recorded after Huione Guarantee, which moved roughly $31 billion before Telegram shut it down in May 2025. Platforms like Xinbi function as escrow marketplaces where sellers post crypto deposits to guarantee delivery of illicit goods and services, a structure that helps sustain large-scale scams including “pig butchering” romance-fraud schemes that convert long-term victim trust into stolen funds.

Xinbi denounced the freezes as “arbitrary” and vowed to reimburse affected users, while also shifting some holdings out of USDT. The marketplace reportedly swapped about $2.8 million of its remaining USDT into USDD, a stablecoin created by Tron founder Justin Sun that does not include a centralized freeze mechanism; however, USDD’s reserves are partially backed by USDT, complicating attempts to flee assets tied to frozen tokens. The DOJ’s Scam Center Strike Force — launched in November 2025 — said the Xinbi action was part of a broader enforcement day that included support for operations in Madagascar targeting 13 Chinese-run scam compounds and processing evidence from nearly 400 arrestees and more than 3,200 seized devices. Since its creation, the Strike Force has seized roughly $938 million in scam-linked cryptocurrency.