{"id":28704,"date":"2026-05-15T10:43:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T10:43:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/tether-faces-court-push-to-hand-frozen-iran-linked-usdt-to-victims\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T10:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T10:44:10","slug":"tether-faces-court-push-to-hand-frozen-iran-linked-usdt-to-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/tether-faces-court-push-to-hand-frozen-iran-linked-usdt-to-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"Tether faces court push to hand frozen Iran-linked USDT to victims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"post-detail__content blocks\">\n<p><strong>Victims holding unpaid U.S. terrorism judgments against Iran have asked a federal court in Manhattan to order Tether to turn over 344,149,759 USDT.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"cn-block-summary-block_60c2d0e6372bcbf85757b38cd6e36c04\" class=\"cn-block-summary\">\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__nav tabs\">\n        <span class=\"tabs__item is-selected\">Summary<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__content\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Victims seek 344,149,759 USDT frozen in two OFAC-blocked Tron wallets linked to Iran\u2019s IRGC.<\/li>\n<li>The motion asks Tether to zero out blocked balances and reissue equivalent tokens to plaintiffs.<\/li>\n<li>The case tests whether issuer-frozen stablecoins can satisfy unpaid terrorism judgments in US courts.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .cn-block-summary --><\/p>\n<p>The funds sit in two blocked Tron wallets tied to Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.<\/p>\n<p>The motion asks Tether to reduce the blocked balances to zero and issue the same amount of USDT to a wallet named by the plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers. The creditors seek to enforce judgments tied to attacks linked to Iran-backed groups.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Filing cites Tether\u2019s control<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The filing <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tbstat.com\/wp\/uploads\/2026\/05\/125-mc-00527-MMG.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">argues<\/a> that Tether has the technical ability to act because it has frozen and reissued USDT in earlier law enforcement cases. It says, \u201cTether is required to turn over any property of a judgment debtor that it is capable of turning over.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That argument centers on how USDT works. Unlike Bitcoin or Ether, USDT has issuer-level controls. Tether can block addresses and stop balances from moving when it responds to sanctions or law enforcement orders.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>OFAC freeze set the stage<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The wallets were frozen after OFAC sanctioned Iran-linked crypto addresses on April 24. Crypto.news reported that Tether froze about $344 million in USDT across two Tron addresses after U.S. authorities linked them to the IRGC and Central Bank of Iran networks.<\/p>\n<p>TRM Labs <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.trmlabs.com\/resources\/blog\/ofac-sanctions-crypto-addresses-associated-with-the-central-bank-of-iran-freezes-usd-344-million\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">said<\/a> the two wallets received about $370 million across nearly 1,000 transactions since March 2021. It added that most funds stayed dormant after late 2023, a pattern it described as reserve storage rather than active use.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Wider Tether freeze activity grows<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The court push comes as Tether\u2019s freeze role keeps expanding. Crypto.news reported that the T3 Financial Crime Unit, backed by Tether, Tron and TRM Labs, has frozen more than $450 million in suspected illicit assets since launching in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Separate market updates said Tether froze more than $514 million in USDT across 370 addresses in a recent 30-day period. BlockSec data cited by crypto.news placed Tether\u2019s 2025 blacklist total at $1.26 billion across Ethereum and Tron.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, the motion does not mean the plaintiffs have received the funds. A judge must still decide whether Tether can be compelled to transfer the frozen USDT under New York turnover rules and federal terrorism enforcement laws.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victims holding unpaid U.S. terrorism judgments against Iran have asked a federal court in Manhattan to order Tether to turn over 344,149,759 USDT.\u00a0 Summary Victims seek 344,149,759 USDT frozen in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28706,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28704\/revisions\/28706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}