U.S. Treasury seeks to block Huione Group over North Korea laundering ties
By: cryptosheadlines|2025/05/02 18:45:01
0
Share
Airdrop Is Live CaryptosHeadlines Media Has Launched Its Native Token CHT. Airdrop Is Live For Everyone, Claim Instant 5000 CHT Tokens Worth Of $50 USDT. Join the Airdrop at the official website, CryptosHeadlinesToken.com The U.S. Department of the Treasury has proposed a federal rule to sever the Cambodia-based Huione Group’s access to the U.S. financial system, citing the company’s alleged involvement in laundering billions of dollars linked to North Korean cybercrime and online fraud schemes.According to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Huione and its affiliates have facilitated significant illicit transactions since August 2021. These transactions are connected to online romance and investment scams.The proposed action will make it more difficult for cybercriminals such as Lazarus Group to launder their illicit profits. Notably, a 30-day public comment period must be completed before the proposed rule becomes operative.Huione Group becomes a preferred marketplace for criminals to conduct money laundering operationsU.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement on May 1 that malicious cybercriminals such as Lazarus Group had stolen billions of dollars from regular Americans and that Huione Group has become their preferred marketplace.These remarks followed investigations that the Huione Group had established a network of companies, including the cryptocurrency exchange Huione Crypto, the payment service platform Huione Pay PLC, and the online marketplace Haowang Guarantee, which sold illegal goods and services.Moreover, FinCEN revealed that from August 2021 to January 2025, Huione Group allegedly laundered at least $4 billion in illicit proceeds, including over $36 million from cryptocurrency pig slaughtering schemes. According to the Treasury, at least $37 million worth of the cryptocurrency that was laundered was connected to North Korea’s “cyber heists.”One notable case involved the laundering of $35 million from the $305 million hack of Japan’s DMM Bitcoin exchange through Huione Guarantee, a subsidiary of Huione Group.Victims of these scams have suffered significant financial losses. Beth Hyland, one of the pig butchering victims, said she had been the victim of a Tinder scammer in 2024 who kept “manipulating and gaslighting” her until she sent over a significant amount through Bitcoin ATMs.“We started chatting and hit it off right away. We were going to meet. He said he was a freelance manager for a construction company,” Hyland recalled, explaining how the Nigeria-based con artist kept claiming he was locked out of his bank accounts and was hard up for funds to pay his workers.The Treasury said that Haowang Guarantee had turned Huione Group into a “one-stop shop” for criminals to launder cryptocurrency they had acquired through illegal means and then exchange it for fiat currency.Furthermore, Huione Pay, a company based in Phnom Penh, was reported to have received more than $150,000 in cryptocurrency last year from a wallet belonging to North Korea’s notorious Lazarus hacking group, which was suspected of stealing billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency over the years, most likely to finance domestic projects.According to Bessent, today’s proposed action will sever Huione Group’s access to correspondent banking, degrading these groups’ ability to launder their ill-gotten gains. Treasury remains committed to disrupting malicious cyber actors’ attempts to secure revenue from or for their criminal schemes.The Huione Group gets into trouble for its cryptocurrency laundering activitiesThe conglomerate had also developed the U.S. Dollar Huione (USDH), a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin FinCEN claimed was unfrozen and aided in money laundering.Consequently, payment companies were prohibited from dealing with or trading digital assets in Cambodia, according to the National Bank of Cambodia, revoking the company’s local banking license in March.In addition, concerning the U.S. Treasury Department’s suggestion to cut off the Cambodia-based Huione Group from the U.S. financial system, the FinCEN attempted to use Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, which gave it nuclear option power, to make this possible.In its rulemaking submission, the Treasury’s FinCEN pointed out that while the conglomerate did not have correspondent accounts with U.S. financial institutions, it did have accounts with foreign companies with U.S. correspondent accounts.The Treasury’s action against Huione is part of a broader effort to combat North Korea’s use of cybercrime and digital asset theft to fund its weapons programs. In December 2024, the U.S. sanctioned two Chinese nationals and a UAE-based company for facilitating money laundering operations that funneled illicit proceeds back to Pyongyang.Cryptopolitan Academy: Want to grow your money in 2025? Learn how to do it with DeFi in our upcoming webclass. Save Your SpotSource link
You may also like

The pricing controversy of Trade.xyz exposes the fatal weakness of Pre-IPO perpetual contracts
SpaceX's equity update has sparked controversy over on-chain liquidations. Trade.xyz refuses to reset the SPCX pricing, and the lack of a Rebase mechanism in Perp DEX has led to a significant trust test for on-chain Pre-IPO assets.

World Cup 2026 Coming – WEEX Celebrates with $1M Prize Pool & Michael Owen Live
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is hours away. WEEX unveils the “World Cup x Dice Rush” campaign with a 1,000,000 USDT prize pool. Plus, Michael Owen reunites with WEEX COO for an exclusive pre-match livestream. Join now!

Galaxy in-depth report: Is Solana still worth paying attention to?
Solana did not fall behind during the bear market. Trading enthusiasm has waned, but the network is more stable, RWA and stablecoins are expanding, and the capital foundation is much thicker than in the previous cycle. The real question is: when the speculative tide recedes, can perpetuals, predicti...

Young people in South Korea make a "final effort" in the epic bull market
The South Koreans' average of two accounts for wildly gambling in the chip bull market reflects the survival anxiety and harsh reality of countless young people trying to break through class barriers behind the nationwide stock trading frenzy for wealth.

Dialogue with OmenX Founder: Why does the prediction market need an evolution from "spot" to "derivatives"?
How to reconstruct the prediction market using leverage?

When the P2P illicit funds from ten years ago turned into 60,000 bitcoins
The largest Bitcoin money laundering case in the UK has new developments: 16,000 Chinese victims are pursuing 61,000 seized Bitcoins across borders, and the dispute over the applicability of UK and Chinese laws will directly determine whether the victims can share in the soaring profits.

Morning News | CME Group launches Nasdaq Cryptocurrency Index futures; Asset management giant Janus Henderson strategically invests in Ethena
Overview of Important Market Events on June 10

Why did Oracle deliver the strongest financial report in history, yet its stock price fell?
Oracle's revenue for fiscal year 2026 set a record, with AI cloud orders soaring to $638 billion, but massive capital expenditures on computing power led to negative free cash flow, causing a 5% drop in after-hours stock prices.

Bitcoin Layer 2 Network Botanix: Why Did We Choose to Dissolve?
The Bitcoin L2 star project Botanix announced a gradual shutdown, with the team admitting to facing severe challenges from the failure of its business model and the prevailing trends. Users are urged to withdraw all assets before July 9, 2026.

Morning Report | OpenAI has submitted an S-1 registration statement draft to the U.S. SEC; Morpho completes $175 million financing
Overview of Important Market Events on June 9th

Galaxy Deep Research Report: How Hyperliquid's HIP-4 Upgrade Changes the Landscape of Prediction Markets?
The platform that wins this competition will be the one whose execution layer is the hardest to replicate, whose builder ecosystem delivers the fastest, and whose regulatory path is the most open.

Latest research from 13 top universities including Cornell University: The current state, challenges, and misconceptions of the fusion of Crypto and AI
The combination of AI and crypto is still in its early stages, with both serving as complementary "middleware": AI translates human intentions into executable programs, while cryptographic technology provides verifiable and tamper-proof guarantees for computational processes and results. In the dire...

Deconstructing Anthropic: The Best AI Company, Possibly Also a Type of Organizational Invention
Instead of competing with ambition, focusing on restraint, how does Anthropic leverage extreme strategic focus and an "counterintuitive" geek culture to counterattack OpenAI on the AI battlefield?

Every exchange is a "Universal Exchange."
You initially build infrastructure for something, then realize it can also be used for many other things, and then you continuously expand the business to accommodate everything that the infrastructure can support.

The counterattack of traditional finance: Alliance chains are quietly reviving
Whether public chains win or consortium chains win has never been the focus.

Pantera Capital Partner: How Tokenization is Restructuring the Private Equity and Early Investment Ecosystem?
Top tech companies are going public later and later, leaving retail investors shut out during the high growth period. Can tokenization give ordinary people back this entry ticket?

Mastercard Launches Agent Pay for AI, Plans to Record AI Agent Payment Authorizations on Polygon
Mastercard launched Agent Pay for AI, a new payment protocol designed to help AI agents make small payments such as pay-per-use access to data and APIs. The system plans to record human-granted AI agent permissions on Polygon, focusing on verifiable authorization, identity, and payment controls.

Curve Deploys Llamalend v2 on Optimism With 250,000 OP Incentives
Curve launched Llamalend v2 on Optimism with 250,000 OP incentives from the Optimism Foundation. The upgrade expands Llamalend beyond its earlier crvUSD-focused model, adding broader collateral support, LlamaRisk market reviews, and the ability to use Curve LP tokens as collateral.
The pricing controversy of Trade.xyz exposes the fatal weakness of Pre-IPO perpetual contracts
SpaceX's equity update has sparked controversy over on-chain liquidations. Trade.xyz refuses to reset the SPCX pricing, and the lack of a Rebase mechanism in Perp DEX has led to a significant trust test for on-chain Pre-IPO assets.
World Cup 2026 Coming – WEEX Celebrates with $1M Prize Pool & Michael Owen Live
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is hours away. WEEX unveils the “World Cup x Dice Rush” campaign with a 1,000,000 USDT prize pool. Plus, Michael Owen reunites with WEEX COO for an exclusive pre-match livestream. Join now!
Galaxy in-depth report: Is Solana still worth paying attention to?
Solana did not fall behind during the bear market. Trading enthusiasm has waned, but the network is more stable, RWA and stablecoins are expanding, and the capital foundation is much thicker than in the previous cycle. The real question is: when the speculative tide recedes, can perpetuals, predicti...
Young people in South Korea make a "final effort" in the epic bull market
The South Koreans' average of two accounts for wildly gambling in the chip bull market reflects the survival anxiety and harsh reality of countless young people trying to break through class barriers behind the nationwide stock trading frenzy for wealth.
Dialogue with OmenX Founder: Why does the prediction market need an evolution from "spot" to "derivatives"?
How to reconstruct the prediction market using leverage?
When the P2P illicit funds from ten years ago turned into 60,000 bitcoins
The largest Bitcoin money laundering case in the UK has new developments: 16,000 Chinese victims are pursuing 61,000 seized Bitcoins across borders, and the dispute over the applicability of UK and Chinese laws will directly determine whether the victims can share in the soaring profits.
Customer Support:@weikecs
Business Cooperation:@weikecs
Quant Trading & MM:bd@weex.com
VIP Program:support@weex.com




