Tether says it helped authorities freeze nearly $550 million in Iran-linked USDT

Tether said it helped authorities freeze nearly $550 million in Iran-linked USDT during 2026. In a statement on Monday, Tether said it had worked closely with international law enforcement for years. Tether said it froze more than $130 million in USDT across four wallets this year alone. Tether said it froze more than $344 million linked to the Central Bank of Iran in April. Investigators on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report alleging that USDT had become a key channel for Iran to evade sanctions. The investigators found that 84% of 846 crypto wallets sanctioned over ties to Iran had transacted exclusively or nearly exclusively in USDT. The findings prompted Senator Richard Blumenthal to call on the Treasury and Justice departments to investigate potential sanctions violations. Tether said its cooperation with authorities globally had resulted in more than $4.9 billion in frozen assets. Tether said more than $2.4 billion of those assets were connected to US authorities. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said Tether had consistently demonstrated that USDT was not a haven for sanctioned actors, terrorist organizations or criminal networks. Ardoino said the DOJ, FBI, Secret Service, HSI, OFAC and authorities around the world had repeatedly worked with Tether to trace, freeze and recover assets. Ardoino said Tether would continue to make that capability available to authorities working to stop terrorism, sanctions evasion, fraud and other serious crimes.