Stablecoin issuer Tether said on September 28 that its 2026 cooperation with U.S. law enforcement helped freeze approximately $550 million in USDT held in Iran-linked wallets, in a statement issued as the Treasury Department expands its campaign against Iranian sanctions-evasion networks. The company said the freezes targeted addresses that U.S. authorities had connected to the Central Bank of Iran and its sanctions networks.
Two major freeze actions
Tether said it supported the U.S. government in freezing more than $344 million in USDT across two addresses in April, acting on information from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and U.S. law enforcement. The following day, OFAC added those same addresses as digital currency identifiers for the Central Bank of Iran, whose sanctions entry is linked to the IRGC-Qods Force and Hezbollah. In July, more than $130 million in USDT across four TRON wallets was frozen after Treasury expanded the designation to include additional addresses. “Together, those actions amount to approximately $550 million in Iran-linked USDT frozen in 2026 alone,” the company said.
A sanctions push, not just a freeze
Tether framed the actions as evidence that the dollar-pegged token is not a refuge for illicit actors, pointing to Operation Economic Outcast, the campaign Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced last month to sever financial networks supporting the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The effort has already seen Treasury sanction an Iranian crypto exchange over bitcoin transfers to the IRGC. “Tether has consistently demonstrated that USD₮ is not a haven for sanctioned actors, terrorist organizations or criminal networks,” CEO Paolo Ardoino said. “Public blockchains provide authorities with a level of visibility into the movement of funds that simply does not exist with cash.”
A wider enforcement record
Tether said the Iran-linked freezes sit within a broader record of cooperation that has helped freeze more than $4.9 billion in assets globally, including more than $2.4 billion connected to U.S. authorities. The company said it works with more than 340 law enforcement agencies across 67 countries and has supported more than 2,800 investigations, including the U.S. Justice Department case in which Tether assisted a $52 million scam crackdown. “The record is public: the DOJ, FBI, Secret Service, HSI, OFAC and authorities around the world have repeatedly worked with Tether to trace, freeze and recover assets,” Ardoino added.
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