Senate Probe Finds Iran Using Tether’s Stablecoin to Bypass Sanctions and Fund Proxies Like Hezbollah: Report
Iran has been leaning on Tether’s dollar-pegged USDT to dodge a U.S. sanctions dragnet and move money for the regime and proxies such as Hezbollah, according to a new Senate Democrats report. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations says the token has become a primary payment rail for Tehran and a funding tool for terrorist proxy groups, reports The Wall Street Journal, which viewed a copy of the findings. Tether’s USDT accounts for about 60% of all stablecoins by market capitalization. Because the token tracks the dollar, it is less volatile than other crypto — making it useful for payments and, the Journal notes, for money laundering. Treasury has been tightening the economic squeeze since U.S. military strikes in Iran earlier this year, including August’s Operation Economic Outcast. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) led the probe, which reviewed 846 wallets sanctioned by the U.S. and Israeli governments over Iran ties and found that 84% of them traded exclusively o...
