By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 25th, 2024
As per the latest reports, the US DoJ has once again revived the investigation into Tether’s alleged bank fraud.
On Thursday, October 31, a Bloomberg report showed that the US Justice Department (DoJ) has revived the probe into Tether over the long-going allegations of bank fraud.
DoJ to Investigate the Case of Tether
The Justice Department started the investigation last year around July 2021. However, development has been relatively slow in this matter. US Attorney Damian Williams in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) will lead the probe reported Bloomberg.
Federal investigators have been investigating the nature of transactions between banks and Tether. The USDT stablecoin issuer has been facing accusations of illegit banking relationships and opaque accounting practices.
Back in February 2021, Tether and its sister firm Bitfinex paid a total of $18.5 million for settling a two-year-long investigation with NYAG. Soon after the Bloomberg report on Monday, Tether published its response saying that the company is in an open dialogue with law enforcement agencies. Tether also added that they are “helping the department … with some of the biggest cybercrime and national security cases in the country”. In its blog post, Tether further added:
“Tether executives have had no interactions with the DOJ in connection with any investigation for well over a year and the DOJ does not appear to be actively investigating Tether”.
Tether Slams Bloomberg
Tether has lashed out at Bloomberg in its blog post accusing them of spreading false information. It also added that Bloomberg is recycling old news that isn’t even factual. In the blog post, Tether mentions:
“Bloomberg has proven themselves time and time again to be desperate for attention in an industry that they just do not understand. This most recent attempt to tarnish the reputation of Tether, one of the industry’s most significant contributors is yet another example of this behavior”.
“It is business as usual at Tether, as we continue to lead the industry in transparency, as the largest and most agile stablecoin on the market,” it added.
Amid the crypto market rally recently, Tether’s USDT stablecoin witnessed strong whale activity. On-chain data provider Santiment reported that “whales have been busy Monday following the weekend volatility. Perhaps the most significant of the assets seeing increased $100k+ whale transactions are #Tether and #USDCoin. With large buying power moving, major market movement should continue”.