As part of the investigation, US and UK authorities are studying USDT transfers through the Russian Garantex exchange in the amount of $20 billion, the agency reports. Bloomberg with reference to knowledgeable sources.
According to them, the check is being carried out as part of the fight against sanctions evasion.
All stablecoin transactions took place after April 2022, when Garantex was added to the US sanctions list.
Tether, for its part, said it is working with law enforcement to ensure compliance. Sources noted that there were no allegations of wrongdoing on the part of the stablecoin issuer.
Tether's total capitalization at the time of writing is $104 billion, according to CoinGecko. Thus, according to the US and UK authorities, a fifth of all coins in circulation passed through Garantex.
According to OFAC, in April 2022, an analysis of known Garantex transactions showed that transactions worth more than $100 million were associated with illegal entities and darknet marketplaces. Of these, almost $6 million came from the Russian hacker group Conti and about $2.6 million from Hydra.
In October 2023, Garantex commented on the allegations of “financing Hamas” made in the Elliptic study.
Source: Cryptocurrency
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