Tether is said to have frozen a Tron (TRX) wallet that had more than 28 million USDT tokens in it. These tokens are thought to be the result of crimes like fraud and money laundering.
On July 13, the USDT/USDC Ban List account, which watches over Tron and Ethereum (ETH) stablecoins in real time, said that Tether had banned an address called TNVaKW that held $28.25 million in USDT.
People think that the bag has something to do with the Cambodian business Huione Group. Blockchain security company Bitrace said in a post on X on July 14 that the frozen wallet, which was set off on July 9, is connected to Huione Group’s Guarantee business.
Tether’s Anti-Fraud Measures
Bitrace’s research showed that Huione was trying to get around the freeze by creating a new address called TQuFSv and sending $114,800 in USDC from the frozen TNVaKW wallet to it.
Bitrace said that Huione’s other business addresses, including its old business address TL8TBp, are still working, even though Tether took action.
A renowned crypto-tracing company called Elliptic also said that Huione Guarantee was involved in fraud, especially pig-butchering scams.
Elliptic says that the online market has grown into a major hub for scams in Southeast Asia and has been linked to at least $11 billion worth of illegal trades.
It was said by Elliptic that the Cambodian business acts as a deposit and escrow service for peer-to-peer transactions on Telegram, mainly using Tether’s USDT stablecoin. It seems that this made it a popular place for scammers and people who hide money to do business.
The blockchain research company also said that Huione Guarantee had ties to Cambodia’s ruling family, including Prime Minister Hun Manet.
Because of these reveals, law enforcement and blockchain experts are now trying to stop Huione from doing business by keeping an eye on crypto transactions and finding wallets that are connected to the platform.
The Tether freeze shows that these efforts to fight crypto-related scams and the complicated web of financial crimes made easier by crypto platforms that look like they are safe are still going strong.
