Hey all, Liam here. 

On Monday morning, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published an explosive investigation into the vast network of crypto exchanges and over-the-counter desks that facilitate the movement of millions in illicit funds. 

At its centre: a Cambodia-based crypto exchange called Huione, which has links to the country’s ruling family, as DL News reported in 2024.

In May, the US Treasury Department designated Huione as a money-laundering operation for its role in cleaning digital assets generated from illicit activity. 

North Korean hacker groups, as well as large scam centres in Southeast Asia, have used the exchange to move ill-got funds, the Treasury said.

Cyber threat investigator Ngo Minh Hieu characterised Huione as “the Amazon for criminals,” referring to the mega e-commerce site.

And the Treasury Department, via the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCen, moved to sever it from the US financial system. 

“Huione Group has established itself as the marketplace of choice for malicious cyber actors like the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and criminal syndicates, who have stolen billions of dollars from everyday Americans,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent declared.  

According to the ICIJ investigation, however, it doesn’t appear that some of the largest crypto exchanges got the memo. 

Take Binance and OKX, for example. 

Both platforms recorded more than $600 million in funds from Huione, according to reports. 

Between July 2024 and July 2025, Binance hosted over $400 million in deposits flowing from Huione. OKX recorded another $220 million in deposits over five months this year. 

A Binance spokesperson told the ICIJ that it maintains the highest security standards and works closely with authorities to monitor risky activity. Binance did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

“The flows cited in the article represent a very small fraction of overall activity on our platform,” an OKX spokesperson told DL News. “The vast majority of OKX usage is legitimate and occurs under robust anti-money laundering and know-your-customer controls that we continue to strengthen in line with evolving regulatory expectations.”

AML and KYC provisions are security measures companies must implement to combat financial crime.

Once the Treasury Department's blacklist of Huione was put in place in October, an OKX spokesperson said the exchange paused all interactions with Huione.

Enormous sums

While these remain enormous sums, they pale in comparison to the dirty money flowing through traditional finance. 

The United Nations estimates that roughly $2 trillion in illicit funds is laundered each year using traditional financial rails. By comparison, the analytics firm Chainalysis reported that the total amount of illicit cryptocurrency transactions over the last five years is $189 billion. 

Still, for an industry maturing into a fully fledged financial market, the report is damning for several reasons. 

It suggests that suspicious actors continue to find holes in the industry’s ability to monitor illicit finance. It also highlights how a patchwork of regulations makes it challenging to stop criminal activity, especially for technology that knows no borders. 

Meanwhile, illicit actors are constantly evolving their strategies, making it difficult to distinguish bad money from good.

“Not every address linked to a bad actor is used exclusively for illicit activity, and many intermediaries — such as over-the-counter brokers, mixing services, or peer-to-peer hubs — facilitate both licit and illicit flows,” Ari Redbord, global head of policy and government affairs at TRM Labs, told DL News. 

“That nuance is essential when interpreting blockchain intelligence and understanding what attribution actually represents.”  

ICYMI

• Japanese crypto tax relief in sight as regulator set to classify Bitcoin as ‘financial product’
  If Japan’s top financial regulator gets its way, the move could effectively put an end to Japan’s much-maligned crypto tax system for the traders of some of the world’s highest-cap tokens.

• CZ’s lawyer denies speculation of pay-to-play arrangement for pardoned Binance founder
  Changpeng Zhao’s lawyer, Goody Guillen, took to the Pomp podcast on Friday to try to clear her client’s name over pay-to-play ties to the Trump administration.

• Telcoin surges 75% after firm receives crypto bank charter in Nebraska
  Investors piled into Telcoin after the fintech firm became one of the handful of crypto players to secure banking charters in the US.

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DL News is an independent news organisation that provides original, in-depth reporting on the largely misunderstood world of cryptocurrency and decentralised finance. From original stories to investigations, our journalism is accurate, honest and responsible.

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