This content was first published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now being reprinted with permission.
Up until now, an app from a Thai monetary company that is accused of running the “largest illicit online marketplace” in the world is also accessible on Apple.
Huione Promise, a Telegram platform, has facilitated billions of dollars in trades since 2021 – many of which has been for illegal services, from money-laundering to the sale of torture equipment, according a , report issued on Tuesday  , by London-based cryptocurrency compliance business Elliptic.
Huione Promise is a subsidiary of the Huione Group, a Phnom Penh-based company that sells goods from payment processing to plan.
” With transactions totaling at least$ 24 billion, it] Huione Guarantee ] is the largest illicit online marketplace to have ever operated”, Elliptic found.
But until now, U. S. software giant Apple and Google each provided people access to one of Huione Group’s most essential services, a cryptocurrency game.
After being contacted by Radio Free Asia on Tuesday, Google removed the software. As of release, however, Apple had not provided an on-the-record reaction to RFA, and Huione Crypto was still available in its app store.
The allegations of its relationship to organized crime were made public by Tuesday’s review, which included Elliptic in a , a report released in July 2024.
Huione issued a , cover denial of any allegations , of wrong at the time.
Not long after the Elliptic report was published, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, or UNODC,  , described , how Huione Guarantee – referred to by the name” TM 1″ – had laundered money not only for electronic fraudsters but even sanctioned North Vietnamese thieves.
Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC’s assistant local agent, stated that the inclusion of platforms and services providers like Huione into the local criminal ecosystem has allowed criminal groups to expand their operations by providing an easy way for criminal organizations to communicate with the general public.
Minimizing oversight
Like other successful businesses in Cambodia, Huione has ties to the country’s ruling Hun family. Its board includes a member of Hun Manet’s family.
Experts on Southeast Asian organized crime were surprised that Apple and Google had chosen to allow the sale of Huione Crypto in their app stores given the significant controversy surrounding the business.
Jake Sims, a visiting expert on transnational crime at the United States Institute of Peace, stated to RFA that “it is irresponsible to allow a demonstrably criminalized corporation to list their app on major tech platforms. ” Obviously, it expands the reach and thereby profitability of the enterprise. Perhaps worse, it offers them legitimacy”.
Sims urged tech giants to “actively do the right thing and improve their vetting processes” and forbid Huione to “make it far less likely that companies like Apple and Google would risk doing business with a company that has now demonstrated to be the largest online criminal marketplace in history.”
RFA contacted Huione Crypto shortly after she was removed from Google’s list.
The app is no longer accessible on Google Play, according to Danielle Cohen, a Google spokesman, who responded to RFA via email.
The app appeared to have been launched to complement Huione’s release of its stablecoin, USDH, in September 2024. Unlike most cryptocurrencies, stablecoins distinguish themselves by being completely backed by real-world currency reserves, to which their value is pegged.
While the prices of other digital currencies fluctuate wildly, a stablecoin should theoretically always be exchangeable for one unit of any other currency. In the case of USDH, as with most stablecoins, the currency is the U. S. dollar.
Huione suggests that cryptocurrency users should expect less oversight than other digital coins does on its website. ” USDH is not restricted by traditional regulatory agencies, and users ‘ assets will not be frozen at will”, claims a , promotional page , for Huione’s stablecoin.
According to Hofmann, the UNODC has not specifically spoken with Huione with the private sector. However, he added that “major players” like Apple and Google must agree that they must take steps to “make it more difficult for criminal groups to use social media platforms and various app stores for their purposes.”
Huione is reportedly the largest marketplace of its kind, but it isn’t the only one on the United Nations ‘ radar.
” We have witnessed crypto exchanges, illicit online marketplaces, and other related service providers popping up in the region at an unprecedented rate, with many of them being connected to serious organized crime actors within the illicit economy,” Hofmann said.
In October last year, Huione Guarantee rebranded as Haowang Guarantee. In a since-deleted message on the Telegram app announcing the update, the marketplace insisted that” this name change only involves brand changes” and” Huione Group is still one of the company’s strategic partners and shareholders”.
Haowang Guarantee, however, claimed that since the announcement,” Haowang Guarantee has not had any relationship with Huione and operates independently.” Emails to the Huione Group as a whole had no response as of publication.
