We find ourselves living in a world teeming with scammers and fraudulent activities. Our emails are bombarded with messages from unfamiliar numbers that possess an odd form of familiarity. Social media advertisements entice us with promises of extraordinary profits, while dating apps introduce us to individuals who appear too good to be real.

It appears we are not alone in this experience. Almost everyone knows someone – a relative, colleague, or neighbor – who has fallen victim to a scam and consequently lost their money, possibly even their life savings.

However, amidst the growing problem of spam calls and messages, we are compelled to ask a different question. Scammers make billions of dollars annually, but how do they manage to make this illicit cash appear legitimate? In simpler terms, how do they clean their tainted money?

With this question in mind, our search took an international turn, leading us from Hong Kong to Cambodia, where we witnessed the outrageous yet notorious world of scams. From barbed-wire compounds to unfinished buildings, these scams thrived and operated. We even met scammers and their accomplices, known as money launderers, in Chinese restaurants lining the beach.

Insiders eventually came forward and opened the doors to their secret world. They showed us channels on Telegram where they conducted their illicit trade, teaching us their own jargon along the way. They also entrusted us with a trove of documents that outlined their methods in meticulous detail.

Our investigation ultimately led us to a Cambodian company known as Huione Group, an established financial firm with numerous affiliates. However, they chose to remain unresponsive to our inquiries.

Upon further investigation, we discovered that some of their affiliates had created the infrastructure necessary to launder money and reap profits at every stage of the process.

Imagine this: you can even hire a money launderer on Telegram. Telegrams host thousands of chat groups where anonymous individuals advertise money laundering and other illicit services. Huione’s affiliate firms host these online bazaars. Elliptic, an analytics firm, has concluded that this marketplace has been linked to $26.8 billion in cryptocurrency transactions since 2021.

These bazaars operate by charging for advertisements on public groups and maintenance fees for the more private ones. Although one such channel called “Demand and Supply” was removed from Telegram after they were contacted, another sprang up in its place within a week.

The bazaar denies any criminal ties or connections to Huione Group, despite claiming them as “strategic partners and shareholders.”

Furthermore, another branch of the company, Huione International Pay, offers tailored money laundering services, connecting criminals with those who control bank accounts or virtual wallets where the illicit money ends up. These intermediaries, or “matchmakers,” take a cut, typically around 15 percent, and provide some of the earnings to the account owners, also known as “money mules.”

However, scammers too can become victims of scams. Online bazaars provide a “guarantee” service for a small fee, holding deposits in escrow to ensure transactions between criminals and money launderers. This measure is necessary because scammers often steal from each other. Consequently, the deposits ensure a certain code of honor among thieves.

These transactions often involve the cryptocurrency Tether. The money mules assume the greatest risk in this setup. Once the matchmaker brokers the deal and the deposit is made, the mule sends their bank account information to the criminal, who then passes those details to the scam victim. The victim makes a deposit, which in most cases, disappears permanently.

Accounts used by mules typically remain active for just a few weeks. Importantly, these account holdings have no direct link to the scammers themselves. If law enforcement agents or banks uncover the accounts, tracing the money to the criminals proves difficult. While mules may face arrest, scammers are much harder to catch.

Ultimately, the money hops across the globe, transferring from one account to another, often broken into smaller amounts to evade suspicion. In some cases, the money stolen from victims travels from the United States to the Bahamas, where it is used to buy Tether, the aforementioned cryptocurrency. After the mule takes their share for the service, the remaining amount is sent back to the matchmaker, with the criminal collecting the lion’s share of the loot.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/23/world/asia/takeaways-money-laundering-investigation.html