Largest Illicit Online Marketplace' Ever Is Growing At An Alarming Rate, Report Says

Reference: Found here

New findings from the crypto-tracing firm Elliptic show how one of the biggest players in that sphere, Huione Guarantee , has likely enabled $24 billion in gray market transactions—with the volume of activity on the platform rocketing up 51 percent since initial investigations last summer . At the same time, the platform is offering more services than ever, including launching its own messaging app, stablecoin, and cryptocurrency exchange. Expanding the empire means more profits for administrators, but it may also be part of an effort to, according to Elliptic, flood the zone and protect Huione Guarantee from potential law enforcement action or technological crackdowns.

Huione Guarantee mostly operates through the social media app Telegram , organized around groups and bots that have tens of thousands of members and followers. Transactions typically take place using the Tether stablecoin. Telegram did not return WIRED's request for comment about Huione Guarantee's activity and growth on its platform. Tether also did not respond to a request for comment.

Huione Guarantee itself did not immediately respond to WIRED's request for comment. However, last year, following the publication of Elliptic's previous research , Huione Guarantee posted a statement to its website where it claimed to be an "information publishing and guarantee trading platform," and the services "are provided by third-party merchants and we only provide guarantee services." The company also said that after it saw Elliptic's previous report, it removed some sellers.

"With Huione Guarantee, the primary thing being sold is actually laundering of the proceeds of online scams," Robinson alleges. "The vast majority of the funds that are going through the marketplace is in relation to vendors that are openly offering money laundering services who talk about the types of fraud proceeds that they're willing to accept."