PANews reported on January 14 that according to CoinDesk, blockchain security company Elliptic released a report saying that Huione, an illegal goods market based on Telegram, has launched its own stablecoin, which provides personal data and money laundering services. This stablecoin (USDH) is designed to "circumvent the common freezing and transfer restrictions of traditional digital currencies." The Huione website also added that "USDH is not restricted by traditional regulators." The company has also launched its own chat service to reduce its reliance on third-party applications such as Telegram.
Before USDH was launched, Huione’s users used USDT almost exclusively. In July 2024, Tether froze an account at Huione Pay after a wallet received funds linked to a theft attributed to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group.
Huione has facilitated $24 billion in transactions, including a large amount of funds used for the notorious “pig slaughtering plate” scam, the report said. It is a Chinese-language marketplace that is linked to the Cambodian conglomerate Huione Group. Elliptic’s research found that “thousands of vendors” were offering “money laundering services, stolen personal data, technology and other items needed to conduct large-scale cyber fraud” on the platform. The research also found electronic anklets used for victims of human trafficking. One of the money laundering services claimed to represent and operate out of the Golden Fortune Technology Park, which was reportedly a labor camp that forced Vietnamese, Malaysian and Chinese citizens to engage in cyber fraud activities.