Tether Freezes $93K as Crypto Heist Trail Unravels

A string of violent home invasions in France led to the theft of approximately $667K in cryptocurrency. The suspect, operating under aliases M1llionz and RichMilly666, allegedly celebrated their crimes on a Telegram channel called 'EMPIRE.' On-chain investigator ZachXBT was able to trace the laundering trail, prompting Tether to freeze $93K in USDT tied to a specific Ethereum address.

The first robbery took place on April 17, 2026, resulting in the theft of around $557K worth of Bitcoin. Three days later, another $110K in crypto was stolen during a second home invasion.

ZachXBT's investigation revealed that stolen Bitcoin was moved through Chainflip before routing funds into KuCoin, where some were swapped for USDT on the Ethereum network. The investigator found around $84K received directly from the thefts at Exodus wallets linked to the suspect.

Tether's ability to freeze USDT tokens has become a crucial feature of the stablecoin ecosystem. In this case, the freeze captured only 14% of the total stolen amount, leaving the majority still at large.