UK Cracks Down on $20B Crypto Black Market Tied to Southeast Asian Scam Rings
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis puts the number close to $20 billion – the estimated volume of dirty money flowing through Xinbi, the Chinese language crypto market, between 2021 and 2025. Now the UK government wants to ban it.
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Scam Hubs at the Center for Everything
Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development office announced on Thursday that it has imposed a shocking sanction on Xinbi, a platform accused of providing crypto-based services, scam tools, and other criminal resources to bad actors across Southeast Asia.
The move freezes any UK-linked assets tied to the platform and prevents British banks, crypto firms, and citizens from doing any business with it – financial or otherwise.
Xinbi is not just a hacker processor. Reports indicate that the platform is at the center of a web of interconnected illegal operations, many of which are linked to fraud structures spread across Southeast Asia – operations that have attracted global attention for their use of trafficked workers to carry out massive fraud schemes targeting victims around the world.
Those who exploit vulnerable people, abuse human rights and defraud innocent victims will face dire consequences.
Today we have:
❌ The biggest scam known in Cambodia.
❌ You authorized an illegal crypto market place.
❌ Frozen more London properties. pic.twitter.com/0PFp0h8Uyt– Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) March 26, 2026
Two people were also punished for this act. Thet Li is accused of running the international financial network of the Prince Group, a Cambodian company tied to a major crypto fraud. Hu Xiaowei allegedly worked in that financial network and had links to #8 Park, a fraud platform linked to the Prince Group.
Cutting the Money Pipe
Chainalysis, which provided the blockchain data supporting the sanctions, described the move as targeting the scam ecosystem’s on- and off-ramps – sensitive channels that allow criminal operators to withdraw money and withdraw from the legitimate financial system.
According to the firm, Xinbi acted as a commercial hub, providing payment processing and sales services to fraud operators who needed a reliable infrastructure to run their schemes.
The FCDO said the sanctions were designed to isolate Xinbi from the broader crypto system, disrupting its ability to send and receive transactions. Essentially, that means cutting across the board from exchanges, wallets, and financial services based on performance.
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The Line Between Legal and Illegal Crypto
What stood out in the UK government’s statement was its language. Officials have drawn a clear line between legitimate crypto activity and criminal misuse of the technology — a distinction regulators have never been quick to make public.
That framework is important to the industry. For years, critics have pointed to crypto’s role in fraud and money laundering as evidence that the entire sector needs to be strengthened. The Financial Action Task Force estimates that between two and 5% of global GDP passes through traditional financial networks as illicit funds each year.
Data from Chainalysis puts illegal crypto transactions at less than 1% of total transactions on the chain – a figure the industry often cites in its defense.
Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView
