Tether's USDT Stablecoin Under Fire for Links to Iranian Sanctions Evasion
Democratic investigators from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations have found that 84% of 846 sanctioned or flagged crypto wallets linked to Iran transacted almost exclusively in USDT, a stablecoin issued by Tether.
The report, titled 'Tethered to Terrorism,' analyzed over five years of blockchain records and reviewed 846 wallets linked to Iran and other regional proxy groups by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control and Israel's National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing.
According to the report, Alireza Derakhshan and Arash Estaki Alivand, two sanctioned Iranian nationals, received $603 million in USDT between 2021 and 2025 from addresses later sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Tether disputed the findings, stating that it helped freeze $550 million in assets linked to Iran. CEO Paolo Ardoino said that 'USDT is not a safe haven for sanctioned actors, terrorist organizations, or criminal networks.'