As the issuer of the world's largest stablecoin USDT, Tether has frozen digital assets worth over $12.3 million on the Tron network, continuing to strengthen its crackdown on illegal activities in the crypto space.
According to blockchain data from Tronscan, Tether froze these USDT on Sunday at 9:15 AM Coordinated Universal Time.
Although Tether has not issued a public statement, this freeze may stem from concerns over potential sanctions violations or anti-money laundering (AML) risks.
Tether wrote in a blog post on March 7, 2025: "Tether enforces a strict wallet freeze policy to combat money laundering, nuclear proliferation, and terrorist financing, while also aligning with the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list."
This policy is consistent with the sanctions list of the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Cointelegraph has reached out to Tether for comments regarding the fund freeze but has not received a response as of the time of publication.
Tether's ability to freeze assets came under scrutiny again on March 6, 2025, when it froze $27 million of USDT on the Garantex crypto exchange.
On the same day, the exchange suspended operations, claiming: "Tether has joined the war against the Russian crypto market, freezing wallets worth over 2.5 billion rubles (approximately $27 million)."
As early as April 2022, OFAC became the first entity to impose sanctions on Garantex, stating that the exchange ignored AML and other regulatory requirements.
Despite previous freezing actions, Cointelegraph reported that blockchain analysis firm Global Ledger discovered active reserves related to Garantex exceeding $15 million on June 5, 2025.
Although some decentralized advocates criticize Tether's asset freezing capabilities, this mechanism has prevented hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency from being laundered by illegal actors.
The T3 Financial Crime Unit (FCU), jointly initiated by stablecoin issuer Tether, the Tron network, and TRM Labs, froze a total of $126 million in USDT within the first six months of its establishment, Cointelegraph reported in January 2025.
The establishment of the FCU aims to assist global law enforcement in freezing illegal transactions.
The importance of these initiatives is highlighted by the North Korean state-sponsored Lazarus Group, which laundered over $200 million in stolen cryptocurrency between 2020 and 2023.
Lazarus is one of the most notorious crypto hacking groups, first appearing in 2009 and stealing over $3 billion in crypto assets over six years ending in 2023.
According to ZachXBT, Tether blacklisted stolen funds worth over $374,000 in November 2023, while three of the four major stablecoin issuers have blacklisted funds worth $3.4 million associated with the Lazarus-related address clusters.
Related: Polyhedra's ZKJ token plummets 83% due to "abnormal" trading
Original: “Tether freezes $12 million USDT related to suspicious Tron addresses”
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