The Internet's Biggest-Ever Black Market Just Shut Down Amid a Telegram Purge

For years, a Chinese-language market for crypto scammers and money launderers—by some measures, the internet's biggest black market of all time—operated in plain sight on the messaging service Telegram, facilitating tens of billions of dollars in illicit finance. Now, thanks to the scrutiny of one team of crypto crime researchers and Telegram's ban hammer, it's gone. Haowang Guarantee, the crypto-fueled crime bazaar more widely known by its original name, Huione Guarantee, declared in an announcement posted to its website sometime in the last 24 hours that it would be shutting down. The move comes in response to Telegram's action on Monday to ban thousands of accounts and usernames that served as the infrastructure for the sprawling marketplace of third-party vendors, many of whom provided money laundering and other services to the burgeoning industry of East Asian crypto scammers. “Telegrame were blocked all of our NFT, Channels and group on May 13th 2025, Haowang Grarantee will cea ... Read full article.