United States | News & Politics

Before a crackdown by Telegram, Xinbi Guarantee grew into one of the internet’s biggest markets for Chinese-speaking crypto scammers and money laundering. And all registered to a US address.

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According to new research released today by crypto-tracing firm Elliptic, a company called Xinbi Guarantee has since 2022 facilitated no less than $8.4 billion in transactions via its Telegram-based marketplace prior to Telegram’s actions in recent days to remove its accounts from the platform. Money stolen from scam victims likely represents the “vast majority” of that sum, according to Elliptic's cofounder Tom Robinson. Yet even as the market serves Chinese-speaking scammers, it also boasts on the top of its website—in Mandarin—that it's registered in Colorado.

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Hasan Piker, a US-born progressive political commentator, said he was stopped by US Customs and Border Protection agents and questioned about his opinions of Donald Trump and Israeli war policy as he returned to the country on Sunday from France.

Piker, recounting the incident on his Twitch live stream on Monday, said he was led to a private room at Chicago O’Hare airport and interviewed for nearly two hours about his political views.

“The goal here is to put fear into people’s hearts, to have a chilling effect on speech that, like, the government is unafraid of intimidating you,” Piker said. “Does this stop me from saying whatever the fuck I want to say? Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. But the reason why I wanted to talk about it was to give you more insight into what the government is doing, and to speak out against this sort of stuff.”

He said the officer was particularly focused on his criticism of Israel’s prosecution of the Gaza war, asking him: “Do you like Hamas? Like, do you support Hamas? Do you think Hamas is a resistance group?”

Piker said this was his first attempt to return to the US using the global entry program, which normally expedites travel. He was returning to the US to speak on Monday at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.

Piker said neither his phone nor laptop were searched. He said the interview ended shortly after he asked whether he was being detained or if he was free to go. The officer told him he had not been detained, but Piker described it as a de facto detention.

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"You will kill me."

The DNC cited a procedural concern, but Hogg said it is “impossible to ignore the broader context” of his criticisms.

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The border detention and interrogation of left-wing streamer Hasan Piker is just the latest incident that suggests Donald Trump is using the immigration system to harass his critics.