U.S. Treasury seeks to block Huione Group over North Korea laundering ties

By: cryptosheadlines|2025/05/02 18:45:01
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Airdrop Is Live CaryptosHeadlines Media Has Launched Its Native Token CHT. Airdrop Is Live For Everyone, Claim Instant 5000 CHT Tokens Worth Of $50 USDT. Join the Airdrop at the official website, CryptosHeadlinesToken.com The U.S. Department of the Treasury has proposed a federal rule to sever the Cambodia-based Huione Group’s access to the U.S. financial system, citing the company’s alleged involvement in laundering billions of dollars linked to North Korean cybercrime and online fraud schemes.According to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Huione and its affiliates have facilitated significant illicit transactions since August 2021. These transactions are connected to online romance and investment scams.The proposed action will make it more difficult for cybercriminals such as Lazarus Group to launder their illicit profits. Notably, a 30-day public comment period must be completed before the proposed rule becomes operative.Huione Group becomes a preferred marketplace for criminals to conduct money laundering operationsU.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement on May 1 that malicious cybercriminals such as Lazarus Group had stolen billions of dollars from regular Americans and that Huione Group has become their preferred marketplace.These remarks followed investigations that the Huione Group had established a network of companies, including the cryptocurrency exchange Huione Crypto, the payment service platform Huione Pay PLC, and the online marketplace Haowang Guarantee, which sold illegal goods and services.Moreover, FinCEN revealed that from August 2021 to January 2025, Huione Group allegedly laundered at least $4 billion in illicit proceeds, including over $36 million from cryptocurrency pig slaughtering schemes. According to the Treasury, at least $37 million worth of the cryptocurrency that was laundered was connected to North Korea’s “cyber heists.”One notable case involved the laundering of $35 million from the $305 million hack of Japan’s DMM Bitcoin exchange through Huione Guarantee, a subsidiary of Huione Group.Victims of these scams have suffered significant financial losses. Beth Hyland, one of the pig butchering victims, said she had been the victim of a Tinder scammer in 2024 who kept “manipulating and gaslighting” her until she sent over a significant amount through Bitcoin ATMs.“We started chatting and hit it off right away. We were going to meet. He said he was a freelance manager for a construction company,” Hyland recalled, explaining how the Nigeria-based con artist kept claiming he was locked out of his bank accounts and was hard up for funds to pay his workers.The Treasury said that Haowang Guarantee had turned Huione Group into a “one-stop shop” for criminals to launder cryptocurrency they had acquired through illegal means and then exchange it for fiat currency.Furthermore, Huione Pay, a company based in Phnom Penh, was reported to have received more than $150,000 in cryptocurrency last year from a wallet belonging to North Korea’s notorious Lazarus hacking group, which was suspected of stealing billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency over the years, most likely to finance domestic projects.According to Bessent, today’s proposed action will sever Huione Group’s access to correspondent banking, degrading these groups’ ability to launder their ill-gotten gains. Treasury remains committed to disrupting malicious cyber actors’ attempts to secure revenue from or for their criminal schemes.The Huione Group gets into trouble for its cryptocurrency laundering activitiesThe conglomerate had also developed the U.S. Dollar Huione (USDH), a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin FinCEN claimed was unfrozen and aided in money laundering.Consequently, payment companies were prohibited from dealing with or trading digital assets in Cambodia, according to the National Bank of Cambodia, revoking the company’s local banking license in March.In addition, concerning the U.S. Treasury Department’s suggestion to cut off the Cambodia-based Huione Group from the U.S. financial system, the FinCEN attempted to use Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, which gave it nuclear option power, to make this possible.In its rulemaking submission, the Treasury’s FinCEN pointed out that while the conglomerate did not have correspondent accounts with U.S. financial institutions, it did have accounts with foreign companies with U.S. correspondent accounts.The Treasury’s action against Huione is part of a broader effort to combat North Korea’s use of cybercrime and digital asset theft to fund its weapons programs. In December 2024, the U.S. sanctioned two Chinese nationals and a UAE-based company for facilitating money laundering operations that funneled illicit proceeds back to Pyongyang.Cryptopolitan Academy: Want to grow your money in 2025? Learn how to do it with DeFi in our upcoming webclass. Save Your SpotSource link

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BeatSwap is evolving towards a full-stack Web3 infrastructure, covering the entire lifecycle of IP rights.

The core product "Space" is scheduled to launch in Q2 2026, driven by SocialFi


BeatSwap, a global Web3 Intellectual Property (IP) infrastructure project, is attempting to overcome the current fragmentation limitations of the Web3 ecosystem, building a full-stack system that covers the entire lifecycle of IP rights.


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BeatSwap is not limited to existing crypto users but is attempting to take the global music industry as a starting point, actively creating new market demand. Its core strategies include:


Exploring and incubating music creators (Artist discovery)

Building a fan community

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"Space" to Launch in Q2 2026: Building the Core of SocialFi


BeatSwap's upcoming core product "Space" is scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2026. This product is defined as the SocialFi layer in the ecosystem, aiming to directly connect creators with users and achieve deep integration with other platform modules.


Key designs include:

A fan-centric interactive mechanism

Exposure and distribution logic based on $BTX staking

User paths connected to DeFi and liquidity structures


Thus, a complete user behavior loop is formed within the platform: Discovery → Participation → Consumption → Rewards → Trading


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$BTX is designed to be a core utility asset within the ecosystem, rather than just a simple incentive token, with its value directly tied to platform activity and IP use cases.


Main features include:


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With the increased frequency of IP use, the utility and value support of $BTX will enhance simultaneously, helping alleviate the "disconnect between value and utility" issue present in traditional Web3 token models to some extent.


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Gate

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BeatSwap's goal is no longer limited to the traditional Web3 narrative but aims to target over 2 billion digital music users and a trillion KRW-scale content market.


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Conclusion


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With the launch of the Q2 2026 "Space," the project is expected to become a key infrastructure connecting content and finance in the IP-RWA (Real World Assets) track.


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