The Internet’s Biggest-Ever Black Market Just Shut Down Amid a Telegram Purge

For years, a Chinese-language marketplace for crypto scammers and money launderers—by immoderate measures, nan internet's biggest achromatic marketplace of each time—operated successful plain show connected nan messaging work Telegram, facilitating tens of billions of dollars successful illicit finance. Now, acknowledgment to nan scrutiny of 1 squad of crypto crime researchers and Telegram's prohibition hammer, it's gone.

Haowang Guarantee, nan crypto-fueled crime festivals much wide known by its original name, Huione Guarantee, declared successful an announcement posted to its website sometime successful nan past 24 hours that it would beryllium shutting down. The move comes successful consequence to Telegram's action connected Monday to prohibition thousands of accounts and usernames that served arsenic nan infrastructure for nan sprawling marketplace of third-party vendors, galore of whom provided money laundering and different services to nan burgeoning manufacture of East Asian crypto scammers.

“Telegrame were blocked each of our NFT, Channels and group connected May 13th 2025, Haowang Grarantee will cease cognition from now,” nan institution wrote connected its website successful a short, typo-ridden connection successful English, apparently utilizing nan acronym NFT to mention to nan blockchain-based non-fungible tokens that service arsenic impervious of ownership for definite Telegram usernames. “Thank you for your attention.”

Prior to its abrupt shutdown, Haowang Guarantee—which contempt its rebrand was still partially owned by Huione Guarantee and its Cambodia-based genitor institution Huione Group—had allowed third-party vendors to waste a wide assortment of services to crypto scammers, each via Telegram, utilizing deposit and escrow systems to “guarantee” nan transactions. Huione Guarantee merchants chiefly offered money laundering via nan cryptocurrency Tether, but they besides sold different components of nan crypto scam industry, ranging from imaginable unfortunate information for targeting, telecommunications infrastructure, deepfake software, and moreover GPS-enabled collars and electrical batons utilized to enslave workers successful nan scam compounds that person dispersed crossed Myanmar, Cambodia, and nan Philippines.

Telegram's abrupt move to prohibition nan marketplace's accounts appears to person been spurred by WIRED's enquiry to Telegram precocious past week astir new findings from researchers astatine nan crypto-tracing patient Elliptic. Since July of past year, Elliptic has highlighted nan tremendous measurement of money laundering and different illicit transactions taking spot connected Huione Guarantee and later Haowang Guarantee. By Elliptic's accounting successful a January report, nan marketplace and its rebrand had facilitated much than $24 cardinal successful full transactions, which would make it by acold nan largest azygous achromatic marketplace cognition successful nan internet's history. That fig has since jumped to $27 billion, according to Elliptic.

Elliptic's latest findings concerned a 2nd Telegram-based marketplace known arsenic Xinbi Guarantee, which offered a akin exemplary of third-party transactions and had facilitated $8.4 cardinal successful deals since 2022 that researchers opportunity included not only money laundering for scammers, but besides stolen data, harassment for hire, and evident activity trafficking. When WIRED asked Telegram astir Elliptic's findings regarding some markets, nan institution responded pinch wide bans of Xinbi Guarantee and Haowang Guarantee accounts.

“This is simply a immense win. The largest dark-net marketplace to person ever existed has been unopen down,” says Elliptic cofounder Tom Robinson. “It's a crippled changer successful position of wide online criminal markets, and it's immense for victims of online fraud. This marketplace was a cardinal enabler of nan world scam epidemic, and I deliberation this will put a existent dent successful nan expertise of online scammers to do what they do.”