Tether freezes $225m USDT tied to DoJ trafficking syndicate investigation
The funds seized by Tether were linked to a “pig butchering” scam that cost U.S. citizens $3.3 billion in 2022, according to the FBI. Stablecoin issuer Tether reported freezing $225 million worth of its cryptocurrency USDT in a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) probe targeting an international human trafficking ring operating in Southeast Asia. Per the FBI, the “pig butchering” scam involved a romantic scheme set up by scammers who engineered fake crypto exchanges to steal billions from American users. The theft usually started with a “Hi” text and ended with victims trading on platforms operated by this syndicate . Blockchain analytics provider Peckshield pointed to at least six blacklisted wallet addresses. One wallet held as much as $87 million in Tether’s U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin. These funds were held in external self-custodial wallets, meaning they did not belong to Tether customers. #PeckShieldAlert $USDT Added BlackList: 0x82e1d4ddd...