The British government sanctioned Xinbi, a Chinese-language cryptocurrency marketplace accused of enabling large-scale online fraud and human exploitation, in a move on Thursday targeting the financial infrastructure behind global scam networks.

The Foreign Office officially designated Xinbi under its Global Human Rights sanctions regime, making Britain the first country to take action against the platform, according to a report by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.

In the government’s official designation, Xinbi was described as having “enabled and profited from the operation of scam centres in Southeast Asia.”

“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 government’s minister for Europe, North America and Overseas Territories.

“We must keep up the pressure on dirty money and those who benefit from it.” 

The Foreign Office said the “treatment of individuals in these scam centres amounts to a serious abuse of the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment, and of the right to be free from slavery, not to be held in servitude or required to perform forced or compulsory labour.”

Chainalysis described Xinbi as a “key node” in a sprawling, crypto-enabled ecosystem that supports scams such as romance and investment fraud, as well as money laundering and the sale of stolen personal data.

The platform processed more than $19.9 billion in transactions between 2021 and 2025, acting as an escrow-style marketplace connecting vendors offering illicit services, the report said.

The designation highlighted Xinbi’s support for #8 Park, described by Chainalysis as “an industrial-scale scam compound in Cambodia” and by the British government as Cambodia’s largest-such facility, with the capacity to accommodate 20,000 indentured workers.

Alongside the designation targeting Xinbi, the British government also announced sanctions against Legend Innovation Co — the operator of #8 Park — and two officials, Thet Li and Hu Xiaowei, who are linked to the Prince Group, the conglomerate behind many such compounds in the sprawling scamming empire.

Chen Zhi, the founder of the Prince Group, was indicted by U.S. prosecutors on money laundering charges last October.

His company is accused of running compounds in Cambodia where workers and human trafficking victims were forced to conduct cyberscams and steal billions from people in the U.S., Europe and China. Zhi was arrested in Cambodia earlier this year and extradited to China. 

The move from the British government is intended to isolate Xinbi “from the legitimate crypto ecosystem, significantly disrupting its operations by affecting its ability to send and receive cryptocurrency transactions.”

The designation reflects a broader shift toward targeting the “backbone” of scam ecosystems including payment channels and laundering networks, rather than only individual perpetrators, Chainalysis said.

Authorities have increasingly warned that cryptocurrency is playing a growing role in transnational fraud and cybercrime, with illicit networks leveraging its speed and cross-border reach to move funds and evade detection.