"A Telegram-based guarantee marketplace known for advertising a broad range of illicit services appears to be winding down its operations, according to new findings from Elliptic. The blockchain intelligence company said Tudou Guarantee has effectively ceased transactions through its public Telegram groups following a period of significant growth. The marketplace is estimated to have processed over $12 billion in transactions, making it the third-largest illicit marketplace of all time."
"Other parts of Tudou Guarantee, such as its gambling operations, continue to function, so it remains to be seen whether this represents the first stages of a full shutdown or a pivot away from fraud-related activity," the company said. Tudou Guarantee is just one of the many Telegram-based marketplaces serving cyber fraudsters, the others being HuiOne Guarantee and Xinbi Guarantee, which collectively engaged in over $35 billion in USDT transactions. Thousands of channels associated with both services were shuttered by Telegram last year."
Tudou Guarantee has effectively ceased transactions through its public Telegram groups after a period of significant growth. The marketplace processed an estimated $12 billion in transactions, ranking it as the third-largest illicit marketplace by transaction volume. Other parts of Tudou, including gambling operations, continue to function, leaving open whether the change signals a shutdown or a pivot away from fraud. HuiOne Guarantee and Xinbi Guarantee collectively engaged in over $35 billion in USDT transactions, and thousands of associated channels were shuttered. Merchants migrated to Tudou offering stolen personal data, money laundering services, scam infrastructure, and deepfake-enabled impersonation tools. Scam technology vendors received at least $375.9 million in cryptocurrency in 2024, and AI service vendors saw explosive growth from 2021 through 2024, enabling more realistic identity forgeries and scaled scams.
Read at The Hacker News
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]