Thai businessmen sue Tether over $42 million pig-butchering freeze

Two Thai businessmen sued stablecoin issuer Tether in a New York district court. The plaintiffs claimed Tether illegally froze $42.4 million in USDT in October 2025. They claimed Tether acted without a warrant after an informal request from US Homeland Security Investigations. Authorities in the Eastern District of North Carolina issued a seizure warrant for the funds in February 2026. The warrant directed the burn and reissuance of the tokens to a government wallet. The plaintiffs did not dispute their involvement in the investment scam. The lawsuit seeks to unfreeze the funds and obtain potential punitive damages. Attorney Ariel Givner wrote that the complaint challenges Tether's authority to freeze, burn, or reissue tokens held by secondary-market buyers. Givner also wrote that Tether kept earning Treasury yield on the reserves before receiving the warrant. In a separate February case, a US court sentenced a dual national of China and St. Kitts and Nevis to 20 years in prison for orchestrating a $73 million pig-butchering scam.