In brief
- Chinese authorities took Huione Group’s former chairman Li Xiong into custody after Cambodia deported him to China.
- U.S. regulators previously accused Huione of processing at least $4 billion in illicit funds tied to scams and cybercrime.
- Investigators say the firm’s crypto and payment services helped criminal networks move stolen cryptocurrency.
Chinese authorities have arrested the former chairman of Cambodian conglomerate Huione Group, a company U.S. regulators say processed billions of dollars tied to scams, cybercrime, and other illicit cryptocurrency activity.
According to China’s Ministry of Public Security, Li Xiong was identified as a core member of a criminal organization involved in cross-border gambling and fraud schemes, adding that Huione operated e-commerce, payment, and cryptocurrency services. The Huione Group has also faced scrutiny by U.S. regulators.
Last year, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network designated Huione Group a “primary money laundering concern.” The agency said the company received at least $4 billion in illegal proceeds between August 2021 and January 2025, tied to scams, stolen funds, and other cybercrime activity.
In February, agents with the U.S. Scam Center Strike Force reported that freezes and seizures tied to illicit cryptocurrency activity in Southeast Asia topped $580 million. According to experts, Huione Group played a central role in the infrastructure that allowed large-scale crypto scam networks to move and launder funds across the region.
“Huione has been one of the most significant illicit finance enablers we’ve tracked in Southeast Asia,” Ari Redbord, global head of policy and government affairs at blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs, told Decrypt. “From a blockchain intelligence perspective, it functioned as core infrastructure for the scam ecosystem, connecting victim funds to brokers, payment services, and off ramps in a way that reduced friction for laundering at scale.”
Redbord said TRM has observed tens of billions of dollars in cryptocurrency moving through services linked to Huione in recent years, “with consistent exposure to fraud proceeds and other illicit activity.”
“What distinguishes a platform like Huione is not just volume, but its role as a hub that repeatedly appears across multiple criminal typologies and acts as a shared service layer for bad actors,” he said.
Cambodia’s Interior Ministry said Xiong was arrested and deported at the request of Chinese authorities after a joint investigation.
Cyber scam compounds in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia has emerged as a hotspot for cybercrime operations targeting victims around the world, many operating from compounds to run online fraud schemes, including cryptocurrency investment scams and romance scams. Last year, Interpol designated scam compounds as a transnational criminal threat, highlighting their use of human trafficking, online fraud and coerced labor.
Li’s alleged associate Chen Zhi, founder of the Prince Group conglomerate, was extradited from Cambodia to China earlier this year after the company faced sanctions from the United States and the United Kingdom over alleged links to cyber scam networks. In March, prosecutors in Taiwan indicted more than 62 people over alleged links to the Prince Group.
While Redbord said enforcement actions can disrupt networks tied to laundering infrastructure, they rarely eliminate them outright.
“They increase cost and risk and can fragment these networks,” he said. “But actors tend to adapt quickly, shifting to parallel or successor services.”