{"id":94057,"date":"2026-02-07T18:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=94057"},"modified":"2026-02-07T18:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:35:14","slug":"tether-freezes-544-million-in-illicit-funds-at-turkeys-request","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/tether-freezes-544-million-in-illicit-funds-at-turkeys-request\/","title":{"rendered":"Tether Freezes $544 Million in Illicit Funds at Turkey&#8217;s Request"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In late January, Istanbul&#8217;s prosecutor announced the seizure of $544 million in digital assets linked to illegal betting and money laundering. The operation was conducted with the assistance of <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-tether-usdt\">Tether<\/a>, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-02-07\/crypto-giant-tether-aided-turkey-in-billion-dollar-crackdown\">Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Turkish authorities stated that the funds, attributed to the wanted Veysel Sahin, were frozen at the request of a cryptocurrency company, which they declined to name.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;Law enforcement approached us, provided certain information, we reviewed it and acted in accordance with the country&#8217;s laws. This is how we proceed when working with the US Department of Justice, the FBI, and so on,&#8221; commented Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino in an interview with the business agency.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>These actions are part of a large-scale investigation by Turkish authorities, with the volume of confiscated assets already exceeding $1 billion.<\/p>\n<p>According to the analytics firm Elliptic, by the end of 2025, issuers of <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-are-stablecoins\">stablecoins<\/a>, primarily Tether and Circle, blacklisted about 5,700 wallets holding approximately $2.5 billion. About three-quarters of these addresses contained USDT at the time of freezing.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Stablecoins are becoming core financial infrastructure. Understanding the financial crime patterns targeting them is essential for anyone operating in or overseeing the ecosystem.<\/p>\n<p>Our latest blog breaks down the key typologies:<br \/>\u27a1\ufe0f Industrialized cyber scams using stablecoins<br \/>\u27a1\ufe0f\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oPiWY5cN2j\">pic.twitter.com\/oPiWY5cN2j<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elliptic (@elliptic) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elliptic\/status\/2019419495748485488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 5, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>According to Tether, the company has assisted authorities in over 1,800 investigations across 62 countries. The volume of frozen stablecoins allegedly linked to criminal activities amounted to $3.4 billion.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;They are extremely responsive,&#8221; Bloomberg quoted Anchorage Digital Bank co-founder and CEO Nathan McCauley.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He noted that the company behind USDT has &#8220;noticeably improved its reputation&#8221; with law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>Anchorage is the issuer of USAT, a regulated &#8220;stablecoin&#8221; for the US market from Tether. The asset was <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/tether-launches-federally-regulated-stablecoin-usat-in-the-us\">officially launched<\/a> in January.<\/p>\n<p>Previously, the company had avoided operating in the United States for several years amid scrutiny from authorities. In 2021, the Department of Justice <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/bloomberg-reports-us-justice-department-has-opened-an-inquiry-into-tether-the-company-calls-the-news-clickbait\">initiated an investigation<\/a> into Tether over potential bank fraud. At that time, the USDT issuer <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/cftc-orders-bitfinex-and-tether-to-pay-civil-penalties-totaling-42-5-million\">paid a $41 million fine<\/a> to settle allegations of misrepresenting the stablecoin&#8217;s backing, as charged by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.<\/p>\n<p>As reported, Tether&#8217;s net profit for 2025 <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/tethers-annual-profit-surpasses-10-billion\">exceeded $10 billion<\/a>, approximately 30% lower than the <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/tether-reports-13-billion-in-net-profit\">previous 12 months<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In late January, Istanbul&#8217;s prosecutor announced the seizure of $544 million in digital assets linked to illegal betting and money laundering. The operation was conducted with the assistance of Tether, according to Bloomberg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"Tether froze $544M in illicit funds at Turkey's request, aiding a major investigation.","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1153,1444,807,1245,920],"class_list":["post-94057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-confiscation","tag-law-enforcement","tag-stablecoins","tag-tether-usdt","tag-turkey"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"344","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"Tether froze $544M in illicit funds at Turkey's request, aiding a major investigation.","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94057"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94059,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94057\/revisions\/94059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}