Der größte illegale Markt der Welt wird zu einem „Amazonas für Kriminelle“

SS: Kai Schultz, writing for Bloomberg, details how Cambodia’s Huione Group, a conglomerate with legitimate ventures like insurance and money exchange, has also become what investigators call an “Amazon for criminals,” enabling the laundering of billions through its subsidiaries Huione Pay, Huione Crypto, and Haowang (formerly Huione) Guarantee.

Despite public denials, U.S. Treasury action to bar Huione from the American financial system, and regulatory moves in Cambodia and Thailand, Bloomberg’s investigation, based on interviews, corporate filings, internal documents, and blockchain analysis, found the network continues to facilitate cybercrime by rebranding, shifting operations offshore, and even creating its own stablecoin, USDH, to evade freezes on Tether’s USDT. At its core, a secretive unit called Huione International Pay allegedly paired scammers with money mules, tracked victims across multiple countries, and managed transactions worth tens of millions, often tied to “pig butchering” crypto scams.

Links to powerful Cambodian figures, including a cousin of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, and overseas business registrations have insulated the group from deeper scrutiny, while its scale dwarfs previous illicit online marketplaces, with some estimates placing Huione-linked flows above $96 billion since 2021.