Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT, has frozen $12.3 million of digital assets on the Tron Network. The firm said the decision came after suspicion of potential illicit activity or anti-money laundering violations in the network.
On-chain data from Tronscan showed that Tether froze USDT at 9:15 am UTC Sunday on Tron. Although the crypto company has not issued a public statement, the freeze may arise from concerns over potential sanctions violations or AML risks.
Tether aligns its policy with OFAC’s sanctions list
LATEST: Tether freezes $12.3M in $USDT tied to suspicious TRON addresses. pic.twitter.com/WJr2ApEfyp
— MrRebel.eth (@rebelethpromos) June 16, 2025
Tether’s CEO Paolo Ardoino mentioned that the company’s ability to track transactions and freeze USDT linked to illicit activity sets it apart from traditional fiat and decentralized assets. He also acknowledged that Tether takes its responsibility to combat financial crime seriously and will continue working closely with global law enforcement agencies to prevent bad actors from exploiting stablecoin technology.
According to TRM Labs, illicit crypto transactions declined to $45 billion in 2024, representing just 0.4% of total crypto transaction volume. As part of a joint effort collaboration between Tether, TRON, and TRM Labs, the T3 Financial Crime Unit successfully froze over $100 million in criminal assets in the last four months of 2024 alone.
“Tether enforces a strict wallet-freezing policy to combat money laundering, nuclear proliferation and terrorist financing and is also aligned with the OFAC Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List, targeting wallets associated with sanctioned individuals and high-risk activities.”
–Tether.
The USDT issuer said its policy is aligned with the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list. The firm’s asset-freezing abilities received renewed interest on March 6 when it froze $27 million in USDT on the Garantex crypto exchange.
Garantex claimed that Tether had entered the war against the Russian crypto market and blocked its wallets worth more than 2.5 billion rubles. The exchange said it has temporarily suspended all services, including withdrawals, with its website currently under maintenance.
The news followed the European Union’s sanctioning Garantex on February 26 as part of the 16th package of sanctions on Russia’s war or aggression against Ukraine. While delivering the news, the crypto exchange warned its users that all USDT in Russian wallets was currently under threat. It also added that the firm will fight and not give up. The sanctions came three years after the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
In April 2022, OFAC became the first entity to impose sanctions on Garantex, claiming that the exchange disregarded AML and other regulatory requirements. Despite the previous freeze, blockchain analytics firm Global Ledger on June 5 identified more than $15 million in active reserves connected to Garantex.
Tether’s asset-freezing ability has prevented hundreds of millions of dollars worth of digital assets from being laundered by illicit actors. The T3 Financial Crime Unit (FCU), led by the stablecoin issuer, the TRON Network, and TRM Labs, together froze $126 million worth of USDT in its first six months of operation.
Tether continues its fight against illicit transactions
The FCU was formed to assist law enforcement agencies globally in freezing illicit transactions. The importance of freezing crypto was highlighted by the North Korean state-backed Lazarus Group, which laundered over $200 million worth of stolen crypto between 2020 and 2023.
The group is among the most notorious groups of crypto hackers, first appearing in 2009 and stealing over $3 billion in digital assets in six years leading up to 2023. ZachXBT noted that Tether had blacklisted over $374,000 worth of stolen crypto in November 2023, while three out of four stablecoin issuers have blacklisted an additional $3.4 million sitting in a cluster of addresses with Lazarus.
In other news, Tether continues its buying spree with a 32% stake acquisition in Canada’s public gold royalty firm Elemental Altus Royalties on June 12. The USDT issuer announced the acquisition of 78,421,780 common shares of Elemental (ELE) from La Mancha Investments, representing roughly 31.9% of Elemental’s issued and outstanding shares.
According to an announcement by Elemental, the transaction was made for 1.55 Canadian dollars ($1.14) per share, costing Tether approximately $89.4 million. Tether said the investment marked a milestone in its strategy to integrate long-term, stable assets such as gold and Bitcoin in its ecosystem, both as a hedge and as part of its commitment to building a resilient digital economy infrastructure.
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