Tether, the issuer of the stablecoin USDT, has blocked around $225 million in USDT as part of cooperation with the US Department of Justice, crypto exchange OKX and analytics firm Chainalysis.
According to the press release, the funds are linked to an international criminal syndicate involved in human trafficking in Southeast Asia. The volume of USDT frozen in Tether has been described as "the largest-ever freeze of USDT in history."
The company has said:
"During a months-long investigative effort by Tether and OKX, US law enforcement agencies, including the DOJ, were proactively alerted to the location of the illicit funds by analyzing the flow of those funds through the blockchain. These actions prompted the initiation of a freeze request by the United States Secret Service and a voluntary freeze by Tether."
Tether has reported the frozen wallets were on the secondary market and were not associated with Tether customers.