Unveiling Asia's Largest Cybercrime Market: The Dark Empire of Huibang Group

A recent survey revealed how Huibang Group has become the core of the Asian online fraud industry, helping it develop into a vast industry worth billions of dollars. Despite repeated crackdowns, this complex criminal network continues to evolve and operate.

A Vast and Secretive Criminal Ecosystem

Huiwang Group is a financial services group registered in Cambodia, ostensibly operating legitimate businesses such as insurance and currency exchange. However, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, Huiwang is actually a massive money laundering network that has processed at least $4 billion in funds for criminal activities such as fraud and cryptocurrency theft.

Huiwang has several key entities under its umbrella:

• Huiwang Payment: Claims to be "the Alipay of Cambodia", providing mobile payment services.
• Huione Crypto: Cryptocurrency Exchange
• Hao Wang Guarantee: Online Trading Platform

Although these entities appear to be independent, they are essentially part of the Huibang Group. The U.S. Treasury Department pointed out that due to the lack of effective anti-money laundering measures, Huibang has become an important channel for illegal actors.

The Ever-Changing Operating Model

In the face of regulatory pressure, Huiwang has ostensibly closed some of its operations, but in reality, it continues to operate in new forms:

• Hao Wang Guarantee guides customers to the "Potato Guarantee" platform
• Huione Crypto guides customers to register with a new service provider called Kex.
• Huiwang Payment continues to operate under the name "HPay"

This flexible and variable operating method highlights the difficulty of combating such decentralized criminal markets.

Huge trading volume

A survey by a blockchain analysis company shows that the scale of funds flowing through the Huiwang platform is astonishing:

• Elliptic estimates at least $24 billion
• TRM Labs estimates up to $81 billion

This means that the scale of Huiwang far exceeds that of the previously largest dark web market "Silk Road".

Deep involvement in criminal activities

Internal documents reveal that Huiwang International Payment Department directly participated in assisting fraudulent activities.

• Bridge the gap between scammers and money launderers
• Monitor transactions and handle disputes
• Extract commission from transactions
• Provide credit limits to excellent money laundering teams

The department also keeps detailed information about the victims, including sensitive data such as bank account information.

International Criminal Networks

The criminal network of Huiwang has expanded to multiple countries around the world:

• Branch offices are established in Poland, Canada, Japan, and other locations.
• Targeting victims in the United States, Europe, Australia, and other regions.
• Have close ties with local elites in Cambodia

Even in the face of investigations from multiple countries, Huiwang is still seeking various ways to evade regulation and continue its criminal activities.

Ingrained Threats

The continued existence of Huiwang highlights the difficulty of combating such cyber crimes:

• The decentralized operating model makes it difficult to completely eradicate.
• Skilled at exploiting regulatory loopholes in various countries
• Launch its own cryptocurrency USDH to evade regulation
• Deeply intertwined with the global capitalist system

Experts believe that this deeply embedded network of cybercrime in the global economic system cannot be easily dismantled. Countries need to strengthen cooperation and adopt more robust measures to address this threat.