UK sanctions Xinbi marketplace linked to Asian scam centers

The United Kingdom's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has sanctioned Xinbi, a Chinese-language online marketplace that sells stolen data and satellite internet equipment to scam networks in Southeast Asia.

Xinbi is also believed to have helped North Korean threat actors launder cryptocurrency stolen in large heists from companies and individuals worldwide.

According to blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis, Xinbi has processed over $19.9 billion between 2021 and 2025, facilitating everything from unlicensed OTC trades and money laundering to the sale of stolen personal databases.

Today's sanctions also target #8 Park (a massive-scale scam compound linked to the Prince Group crime ring) and Legend Innovation Co (the operator of #8 Park).

"Today the government has stepped up its fight against these scam centres, targeting the owners and operators of a recently identified facility known as '#8 Park,' believed to be Cambodia's largest scam compound, with capacity to accommodate 20,000 trafficked workers," the FCDO said on Thursday.

"The UK is also the first country to sanction Xinbi, one of the largest illicit marketplaces in Southeast Asia, which provides cryptocurrency-based services to scam centres – including #8 Park."

FCDO's sanctions aim to isolate Xinbi from the legitimate crypto ecosystem, disrupting its operations by making it impossible to send or receive cryptocurrency payments, as happened when the Byex Exchange cryptocurrency platform shut down after being sanctioned by the U.K. last year.

Scam centers across Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos are criminal-run operations often operated by Chinese crime syndicates that coerce people (many of them foreigners) to become accomplices in large-scale criminal operations that target victims worldwide in cryptocurrency investment scams, also known as pig butchering or romance baiting.

They usually contact targets through social media, messaging apps, and dating sites, using stolen information bought from dedicated online platforms like Xinbi, to lure victims into fake investment schemes. However, the scammers steal the money by moving it into accounts they control rather than investing it.

"Our sanctions today send a clear message: We will not allow British people to become victims of these dreadful scams or tolerate the awful human rights abuses perpetrated in these scam centres," said Stephen Doughty, the U.K.'s Minister of State for Europe, North America and Overseas Territories.

"We must keep up the pressure on dirty money and those who benefit from it. At the Illicit Finance Summit in June, the UK will drive international action to tackle the ways in which ill-gotten profits are laundered and moved around the world."

Today's action follows another wave of seizures, asset freezes, and the shutdown of hundreds of scam centers in October 2025 after the FCDO and the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) jointly sanctioned the Cambodian Prince Group crime ring and its leader, Chen Zhi. The U.S. Department of Justice also seized $15 billion in bitcoin from Zhi, who remains at large.