This article is reprinted with permission from SlowMist Technology, author: SlowMist AML Team, copyright belongs to the original author.

On October 14, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) took the largest joint sanction action in history against cybercrime groups active in Southeast Asia. This action not only sanctioned 146 individuals and entities related to the "Prince Group Transnational Criminal Organization (Prince Group TCO)" but also announced the seizure of 127,271 bitcoins (approximately $15 billion) associated with the Prince Group. Meanwhile, FinCEN designated the Cambodia-based Huione Group as a major money laundering institution, completely isolating it from the U.S. financial system.

According to the indictment publicly available from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, since 2015, the Prince Group, under the leadership of founder and chairman Chen Zhi (also known as "Vincent"), has gradually developed into a vast network spanning over thirty countries and controlling dozens of business entities. On the surface, the Prince Group operates legitimate businesses in real estate, finance, and consumer services, but in reality, its core profits come from transnational telecom fraud and investment scams implemented through forced labor. The group operates scam hubs in places like Cambodia, running "pig butchering" style cryptocurrency investment scams, with victims spread across the globe. The U.S. government estimates that in 2024, American citizens lost at least $10 billion due to Southeast Asian scam activities. These scams not only involve fraudulent investment websites and social engineering but are also closely related to human trafficking, illegal detention, and forced labor, forming a systematic and industrialized underground economic chain.

According to the indictment and FBI analysis, the Prince Group transfers massive profits from scams and illegal gambling through multiple channels, including cross-border cash conversion, shell companies, fake bank accounts, and disguising them as legitimate business income.

In the initial phase of fund conversion, the Prince Group used so-called "money laundering houses" or "underground banks"—these institutions receive assets from scam victims (mostly in bitcoin or stablecoins) under the guise of "money service providers," then convert them into cash through off-ramp methods, and use "clean" fiat currency to purchase new bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies. For example, the Brooklyn Network, as the Prince Group's operational node in the U.S., had account managers provide seemingly legitimate investment portfolios during the scam process, luring victims to continue investing, while in reality, these accounts were merely funding channels controlled by shell companies. The funds then flowed back to the core accounts of the Prince Group in cash or cryptocurrency. From around May 2021 to August 2022, the Brooklyn Network assisted the Prince Group in transferring and laundering over $18 million from more than 250 victims in the U.S.

To further obscure the trail of funds, the Prince Group also established numerous shell companies (such as FTI, Amber Hil, and LBG) and funneled illegal funds into its "legitimate" business sectors. Despite Cambodia banning online gambling since 2020, the Prince Group continued to operate in multiple countries, with internal ledgers explicitly reminding: "Employee salaries – please use clean money to pay"; another source of funds was cryptocurrency mining, where Chen Zhi invested illegal profits into Warp Data and Lubian mining farms. Investigations showed that nearly 70% of the funds associated with Lubian mining addresses did not come from newly mined bitcoins but were mixed with cryptocurrencies from other sources.

The Prince Group also employed a series of specialized on-chain money laundering techniques—the "spray-funnel" model: repeatedly splitting large amounts of cryptocurrency into dozens of wallets and then recombining them to disrupt on-chain tracking paths. By around 2020, Chen Zhi had accumulated approximately 127,271 bitcoins in illegal wealth, with these assets stored across 25 non-custodial wallets he controlled.

The FBI categorized these addresses into multiple clusters (Cluster Index 1–13) in the indictment, showing highly consistent patterns of fund flow within these clusters, indicating clear signs of money laundering behavior.

In this sanction action, four bitcoin addresses directly controlled by Chen Zhi were listed by OFAC.

According to analysis from the on-chain anti-money laundering and tracking tool MistTrack, these four addresses became active starting in March 2023, collectively receiving 15,961.15 BTC, with each address only transferring out 1 BTC to the next layer of addresses.

The Huione Group, also based in Cambodia, was identified as a major money laundering institution in this action. The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) also issued the final rule under Section 311, isolating Huione Group from the U.S. financial system. Additionally, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) noted in a report in May 2025 that Huione Guarantee had become part of the "industrialized ecosystem of online scams" in Southeast Asia, with its platform receiving over $24 billion in cryptocurrency. Previous statistics from SlowMist also indicated that from January 1, 2024, to June 23, 2025, HuionePay's total deposit and withdrawal amounts exceeded $50 billion USDT, showing a continuous influx and outflow of large amounts of funds over the past year and a half.

FinCEN stated that Huione Group laundered at least $4 billion from August 2021 to January 2025, including:

• At least $37 million from North Korea-related cyber theft;
• At least $36 million from virtual currency investment scams;
• Approximately $300 million from other cyber crimes.

According to FinCEN's final rule under Section 311, all U.S. regulated financial institutions are prohibited from opening or maintaining agency accounts for Huione Group and processing any cross-border transactions for it, thereby preventing Huione Group from indirectly entering the U.S. financial system.

After the announcement of the sanctions, some exchanges, such as OKX, publicly stated that they would take strict control measures against Huione.

In the current regulatory ecosystem, on-chain money laundering, online scams, and high-risk fund flows are no longer just issues for regulators or institutions to focus on; they are directly impacting every cryptocurrency practitioner.

For practitioners, even inadvertently coming into contact with sanctioned addresses or funds related to illicit activities may lead to account freezes or asset seizures. Therefore, it is recommended that practitioners use on-chain tracking tools (such as MistTrack) to conduct real-time screening of counterparty addresses before receiving or transferring digital assets, understand their historical transaction behavior and potential risks, and confirm whether the source of funds is clear and reliable, avoiding the acceptance of assets from sanctioned wallets, known high-risk addresses, or suspicious transaction paths.

For enterprises, exchanges, service providers, and other project parties, KYC/KYT is no longer an "optional task." If they inadvertently establish business relationships with high-risk entities, they may face joint sanction risks. It is necessary not only to verify customer identities (KYC) but also to track fund flows through on-chain transaction monitoring (KYT), identify potential high-risk addresses, sanctioned entities, and suspicious funds, ensuring that enterprises and exchanges do not get involved in illegal transactions.

Based on years of blockchain security research and risk control practices, SlowMist's anti-money laundering tracking and analysis system MistTrack has provided stable and reliable on-chain risk control support and strong AML compliance solutions for multiple exchanges and enterprises, as well as accurate data analysis, real-time risk monitoring, and comprehensive compliance support for individual users, enterprise teams, and developers. MistTrack can detect the source of funds, screen whether funds come from sanctioned wallets or high-risk addresses, and avoid receiving contaminated funds; it can also provide real-time risk control, conducting address reviews before transactions to avoid dealings with sanctioned addresses or suspicious funds, reducing the likelihood of freezing. Currently, MistTrack has accumulated over 400 million address labels, more than a thousand entities, over 500,000 threat intelligence data points, and over 90 million risk addresses, providing solid support for digital asset security and combating money laundering crimes.

Related: SEC Chair: The U.S. is 10 years behind in the crypto space, addressing this issue is a "top priority."

Original article: “$15 Billion in Bitcoin Sanctioned: U.S. and U.K. Launch Largest Ever Joint Sanctions Against Southeast Asian Cybercrime Network”

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