The platform has proven to be a key player in the “pig slaughter” scam industry, which tricks victims into investing in fake cryptocurrency schemes.
Huione Guarantee, an online marketplace operated by Cambodian conglomerate Huione Group, is suspected of facilitating large-scale online fraud and money laundering operations involving cryptocurrencies.
Recent elliptic curves Research ReportThe platform has handled over $11 billion in transactions, the majority of which are related to illicit activity.
Tether is one of the site’s most popular payment options, and it also supports a range of payment apps and bank transfers.
The epicenter of pig slaughter fraud
The Elliptic report noted that the majority of Huione Guarantee’s transactions werePig slaughter Scams. These scams involve social engineering tactics that convince and trick victims into transferring funds to fake investment schemes.
Tom Robinson, co-founder and chief scientist at Elliptic, described Huione Guarantee as a major marketplace for online fraudsters, noting that there is no other platform of its kind operating at such a large scale.
Huione Guarantee offers a wide range of products and services for fraudsters, including shock-resistant GPS-tracked handcuffs and electric batons used in human trafficking operations, data on potential scam targets, fake investment websites and deepfake face-changing services.
The platform also advertises money laundering services to help convert and obfuscate the origins of stolen Tether, a popular stablecoin used in transactions.
Connecting to large-scale businesses
Huione Guarantee is part of the larger Huione Group, which runs a payments app called Huione Pay and has ties to the insurance, aviation and real estate industries in Southeast Asia.
Elliptic reported that Huion executives have ties to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and that the company turns a blind eye to illegal activity taking place on the platform.
Elliptic’s findings include screenshots of conversations between merchants and customers discussing money laundering services and other criminal activity, reportedly motivated to launder the proceeds of pig slaughter scams, which are increasingly common and lucrative and are set to generate an estimated $75 billion between 2020 and 2023.
Forced Labor and Exploitation
The report also highlights the exploitation of workers in scam camps across Southeast Asia, which are common in countries such as Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, forcing people to live and work in harsh conditions and creating content that deceives victims into falling prey to fraud.
The United States Institute of Peace found that these industrial-scale fraudulent compounds are spreading rapidly throughout the region.
A growing threat
The scale and sophistication of pig slaughter scams pose a major threat to the global financial system. The FBI reported that losses from cryptocurrency investment scams in the United States reached $3.94 billion in 2023. The widespread use of identical code and toolkits across various fake investment platforms indicates a highly organized and coordinated effort by fraudsters.