US Seeks $61M in Tether, Ties Network to $1.5B Iran Oil

U.S. prosecutors filed a civil forfeiture complaint on Sept. 14, 2026 in the Southern District of New York seeking about 61.2 million USDT that Tether froze and tied to alleged Iranian crude and petroleum sales intended to benefit Iran’s government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to the complaint.

The complaint targets roughly 61.2 million USDT held across 10 Tron addresses. Prosecutors say seven of those addresses were frozen by Tether in June 2025 and three were frozen in July 2025. A seizure warrant included with the filing authorizes agents to take the value of the frozen tokens into government custody.

The filing describes a process in which Tether would burn the frozen USDT and reissue replacement tokens of equivalent value for transfer to an FBI-controlled hardware wallet. Prosecutors say that method lets authorities move from identifying sanctioned funds on-chain to gaining control of their value without obtaining the private keys for the original wallets.

Prosecutors describe a larger financing network tied to alleged black-market oil sales. A cluster of at least seven interconnected addresses, labeled “Entity A” in the papers, is said to have received and distributed more than $1.5 billion in proceeds. The addresses reportedly routed cryptocurrency to Iran-based exchange Nobitex and to Middle Eastern money-transmission operations that investigators say acted as fronts for the IRGC.

The complaint names two Hong Kong-incorporated companies, Blessed Trust Limited and Hexa Whale Trading Limited, as entities that converted oil-sale proceeds from fiat into cryptocurrency and moved funds through trading accounts at Binance. Prosecutors say Blessed Trust presented itself as a wealth-management or digital-asset custody business and Hexa Whale described itself as a commodities broker.

The filings also trace conventional banking channels. Prosecutors allege an unnamed company wired about $37.15 million to Hexa Whale through U.S. correspondent bank accounts in March and April 2024, and sent roughly $443.49 million to Blessed Trust between November 2024 and March 2025. Those transfers are part of investigators’ reconstruction of the wider financing network and are separate from the 61.2 million USDT now targeted for forfeiture.

Binance is not accused of wrongdoing in the complaint. Binance chief executive Richard Teng wrote that the case was not filed against the exchange and does not allege any misconduct by Binance, adding the platform has cooperated with law enforcement, restricts or freezes accounts where risks appear, offboards users when appropriate, and reports suspicious activity. “We have zero tolerance for sanctions violations or illicit activity,” Teng wrote.

The filing follows a separate Justice Department action in which Tether assisted in freezing more than $52 million tied to an alleged money-laundering marketplace called Xinbi Guarantee. The complaint notes that Tether has worked with more than 340 law-enforcement agencies across 67 countries and helped freeze over $5 billion linked to suspected illicit activity.

The Southern District of New York seeks a legal route to convert the frozen tokens into government-controlled assets and to disrupt the alleged financing stream tied to Iranian oil sales. The complaint relies on on-chain tracking, cooperation from service providers and traditional banking records to trace and seek forfeiture of the funds.