Telegram Dismantles the Largest Darknet Marketplace Ever Existed

One of the largest online dark marketplaces originating from China—suspected of facilitating crypto-related fraud and cybercrime—has been shut down by the messaging app Telegram, the platform through which it primarily operated.

Haowang Guarantee, considered the largest darknet marketplace ever to exist, issued a shutdown notice following Telegram’s sweeping ban of thousands of related accounts on May 13.

“Since all our NFTs, channels, and groups were blocked by Telegram on May 13, 2025, Haowang Guarantee will officially cease operations from this point onward,” read the announcement on the platform’s website.

According to a Wired report, Telegram’s crackdown involved banning thousands of accounts and usernames that served as the marketplace’s core infrastructure for criminal activities.

Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn confirmed: “Communities previously reported to us by WIRED or listed in reports published by Elliptic have all been taken down,” and added, “criminal activities such as scamming or money laundering are prohibited under Telegram’s terms of service and are always removed once discovered.”

According to blockchain security firm Elliptic, the marketplace facilitated an estimated $27 billion in illicit transactions—primarily through the stablecoin Tether. Elliptic researchers also found that the wider Huione Group had supported more than $98 billion in crypto transactions.

The marketplace offered services to crypto scammers including money laundering, stolen personal data for pig butchering scams, telecom infrastructure and equipment, deepfake software and forged IDs, and even physical restraint tools used in scam call center compounds across Southeast Asia.

Elliptic co-founder Tom Robinson called it a “major win,” stating, “The largest darknet marketplace ever to exist has been taken down. It’s a game-changer in the fight against online criminal markets, and a significant relief for victims of online fraud. This platform was a key enabler of the global scam epidemic, and this takedown will severely limit the capabilities of online scammers.”

Earlier in May, the platform was designated as a money laundering operation by the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), with an order to sever it from the U.S. banking system.

The Rise of Xinbi Guarantee

However, Elliptic has also identified another Telegram-based dark marketplace called Xinbi Guarantee, with thousands of crypto wallet addresses linked to merchants operating on it.

On May 13, Elliptic reported having observed $8.4 billion in transactions on the platform so far—though it emphasized that this figure should be seen as a lower bound of the marketplace’s true transaction volume.

Xinbi Guarantee has been linked to a Colorado-based company incorporated in 2022, which was officially listed as delinquent in January 2025.

According to Elliptic, the existence of marketplaces like Haowang and Xinbi reveals the emergence of a “China-based underground banking system” built around stablecoins and cryptocurrency payments—now being exploited for money laundering on a massive scale.