The Justice Department and Treasury’s OFAC moved against Xinbi Guarantee on Wednesday, seizing $52.8 million tied to the Telegram marketplace, sanctioning connected entities, and targeting channels used to run it. The action also reached scam compounds in Madagascar, making this a broader disruption than a simple takedown of a chat group.
Xinbi worked as a criminal marketplace with built-in escrow: scammers and vendors used it to buy services, and the platform held stablecoin payments until the work was done. By seizing wallets and channels, investigators are cutting into the trust and payment system that lets vendors find customers, get paid, and vouch for one another across the scam economy.
For shops that rely on Telegram plus crypto escrow, the exposure is not just the people behind the marketplace but the infrastructure that makes it usable. If that layer is disrupted, the operation can lose its checkout, its reputation system, and the coordination surface that kept it moving.