U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro, together with major federal law enforcement and interagency partners, announced actions taken by the Department of Justice’s Scam Center Strike Force to secure America against Southeast Asian cryptocurrency-related fraud and scams. The Strike Force and the Department of the Treasury took coordinated actions against Xinbi Guarantee (“Xinbi”), an illicit marketplace for scam services, and the Strike Force deployed to Madagascar to assist in the taking down of 13 Chinese-run scam compounds. Approximately $52 million of cryptocurrency involved in scam money laundering was restrained in one day, bringing the total restrained by the Scam Center Strike Force to approximately $938 million.
Joining in the announcement were U.S. Attorney for the District of Alaska Michael J. Heyman, FBI Criminal Division Deputy Assistant Director Matthew Floyd, Special Agent in Charge Tara McLeese of the United States Secret Service Washington Field Office, and Lisa Palluconi, Deputy Director of the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control
“If Chinese organized crime can buy a custom website and a money laundering service the way you order takeout, then every American with a retirement account is in the blast radius,” said U.S. Attorney Pirro. “My Strike Force will continue to dismantle Chinese organized crime, those who facilitate it, and protect Main Street America.”
As alleged in a seizure warrant unsealed today, Xinbi is a Chinese-language illicit marketplace, run on Telegram, where vendors market their services to scam center operators. The Telegram channel operated primarily in Chinese, and the vendors post their available services on the Telegram channel, to include creating custom scam investment websites, laundering or “washing” money that scammers obtain from victims of wire fraud, and soliciting trafficking victims to work in scam compounds in Southeast Asia. Once a scammer “purchases” a service from the vendor, Xinbi as an organization holds money to be paid to the vendor until the vendors services are complete, to assure the scammers that the vendors will perform the services. The seizure warrant alleged numerous instances where U.S. victims funds were traced to specific vendors who advertised their money laundering services on the Telegram channel, and posted cryptocurrency wallets for payment on Telegram. On September 7, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia authorized seizure of the Telegram channels hosting this marketplace.
Additionally, also pursuant to the same warrant, the Scam Center Strike Force seized two cryptocurrency wallets that Xinbi used to collect payments for vendors, which collectively held approximately $12 million in funds. Law enforcement also sought restraint of 47 additional cryptocurrency wallets that were believed to be associated with money laundering on Xinbi’s network and with vendors who had worked for scammers. Due to all these coordinated efforts, more than $52 million worth of cryptocurrency was restrained from Xinbi and its network of vendors that facilitate the organized crime groups running scam centers around the globe. The Strike Force thanks Tether for its proactive assistance in this investigation.
Today, in further coordinated action, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Xinbi as a significant transnational criminal organization and identified numerous cryptocurrency wallets associated with Xinbi. OFAC also designated two other entities for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Xinbi. As a result of today’s action by OFAC, all property and interests in property of these three sanctioned entities that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC.