TLDR
U.S. authorities have frozen about $938 million in scam?linked crypto through a Justice Department strike force, with the latest hit focused on the Xinbi Guarantee marketplace.
- A DOJ Scam Center Strike Force restrained about $52 million in one operation against Xinbi Guarantee, lifting its cumulative frozen total to roughly $938 million.
- Xinbi was a Telegram-based marketplace that processed over $24 billion for scam and laundering networks, heavily using stablecoins such as USDT before wallets were frozen.
- The key next steps are court proceedings, sanctions enforcement, and potential follow?on actions against similar networks, while users face a world where centralized stablecoins can be frozen quickly.
Deep Dive
1. How $938 Million Was Frozen
The Justice Departments Scam Center Strike Force, created in November 2025, reports that it has now restrained about $938 million in scam?linked cryptocurrency across its operations. A single-day crackdown on Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese?language Telegram marketplace, accounted for about $52 million of that total, including two payment wallets with roughly $12 million and another 47 wallets put under restraint. Federal courts also authorized seizure of Xinbis Telegram channels, effectively cutting off its main coordination hub. Treasurys sanctions arm simultaneously designated Xinbi and supporting firms, tightening access to the U.S. financial system.
The 938 million figure is cumulative across multiple cases; the Xinbi action is a large but not standalone event in an ongoing campaign against scam infrastructure.
2. Why Xinbi And Stablecoins Matter
Xinbi acted as an escrow market where vendors sold services for scam centers, including fake investment sites, laundering and recruitment for forced-labor compounds, with payments held until jobs were completed. Treasury and analytics firms estimate it processed more than $24 billion in crypto and fiat since around 2022, and was used by North Korean hackers and other sanctioned groups. The U.S. Secret Service and partners froze about $52.8 million in USDT across dozens of wallets, with stablecoin issuer Tether credited for helping block tokens at specific addresses. Legally, restrained means the assets are frozen pending court action, not yet fully forfeited or returned to victims.
Large scam networks increasingly depend on centralized stablecoins, but those same centralized controls give authorities powerful freeze tools when they can identify suspect wallets.
3. What To Watch Next
Several open questions remain: which assets will eventually be forfeited, whether any funds will be returned to victims, and how quickly future restraints can move from freeze to redistribution. The Xinbi action was paired with raids on 13 scam compounds in Madagascar, signaling that the strike force is targeting entire ecosystems, not just single wallets. Similar guarantee marketplaces and Telegram-based escrow services are now under much closer scrutiny, especially where stablecoins and cross?border flows intersect.
For everyday crypto users, the immediate impact is not on major coin prices, but on enforcement risk around tainted addresses and on how aggressively stablecoin issuers cooperate with law enforcement.
Conclusion
The reported $938 million in frozen scam crypto reflects a coordinated push by U.S. authorities to attack industrial?scale fraud infrastructure, with Xinbi Guarantee a high?profile example. Centralized stablecoins sit at the center of this story, both as tools for scammers and as levers for governments to freeze illicit funds quickly. The balance between enforcement, user privacy and decentralization will be shaped by how future freezes, court outcomes and sanctions around networks like Xinbi unfold.
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