Justice Department revives probe into Tether over bank fraud: Bloomberg

Quick Take

  • A new team is reportedly picking up on a dormant Tether investigation in New York.
  • The probe focuses on Tether’s controversial banking relationships, which have drawn scrutiny from U.S. regulators in the past, according to Bloomberg.

The Justice Department is returning to a probe into potential bank fraud at stablecoin operator Tether, Bloomberg reports, citing unnamed sources. 

The probe focuses on Tether's controversial banking relationships, which have drawn scrutiny from U.S. regulators in the past. Bloomberg originally reported on a banking-related investigation last summer.

Since then, the case has largely gone unnoticed. The Southern District of New York under U.S. Attorney Damian Williams is said to be taking on the investigation, per Bloomberg.

Tether responded with a statement dismissing the report: "This is Bloomberg recycling old news that isn’t even factual." A representative for the firm said of any investigation that "[t]here’s nothing new that we know of."

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Last year, Tether and crypto exchange Bitfinex settled a high-profile case with the New York Attorney General that saw both firms, owned by the same parent company, forced out of the state.

Core to that case was the use of Tether's stablecoin deposits to cover $850 million of Bitfinex funds held by Panama-based payments processor Crypto Capital, which had in turn had them seized. Crypto Capital founder Reggie Fowler pled guilty to criminal charges earlier this year. 


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About Author

Kollen Post is a senior reporter at The Block, covering all things policy and geopolitics from Washington, DC. That includes legislation and regulation, securities law and money laundering, cyber warfare, corruption, CBDCs, and blockchain’s role in the developing world. He speaks Russian and Arabic. You can send him leads at [email protected].