On July 14, the United States Treasury Office for Overseas Assets Control (OFAC) added several encrypted wallets associated with the Central Bank of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to the sanctions list. Later, the stabilizer Tether frozen over $131 million of the four addresses in the Tron chain.
This action is part of the ongoing pressure by the United States on the Iranian financial network. In addition to the wallet sanctions, the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned seven individuals and entities on the same day for their involvement in a global network for the procurement of weapons for the Iranian armed forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Four Tron addresses involved.
According to the disclosures, frozen funds were distributed among four Tron addresses, totalling more than $131 million. The United States Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, stated that the United States would continue to track the flow of funds and cut off access to illicit funds.
The USDT is issued by Tether and, although it can flow over the public chain, the issuer can still freeze the specific address at the level of the agreement, making it impossible to transfer the assets. This is also the key to the rapid landing of law enforcement this time.
Chain analysis points to DTC Pay and Bitso
A chain analyst, Specter, identified the four above-mentioned addresses before the official announcement and stated that they related to the Central Bank of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Its tracking results show that most of the funds were previously proposed from the payment service provider, DTC Pay, and the Latin American Encryption Exchange, Bitso, and subsequently into the sanctioned wallet.
The transaction records of the open block chain network can be searched on a long-term basis, enabling law enforcement agencies to analyse the financial trail of companies in conjunction with the chain. In particular, the freezing or seizure of funds is more likely to be triggered when the funds enter a regulated platform or attempt to convert into French currency.
The United States continues to expand its encryption sanctions against Iran
Iran has continued to develop its encryption infrastructure in recent years in order to ease the pressure of traditional financial constraints. The country legalized the mining of bitcoin in 2019 and extensively used USDT for value storage and cross-border settlement.
For its part, the United States continues to expand the scope of the attack. In April, Tether had frozen two other Tron addresses related to the Central Bank of Iran, involving $344 million USDT. By May, United States officials claimed that, since the launch of Operation Economic Anger, some $1 billion of Iran-related encrypted assets had been seized. In June, the United States Treasury Department sanctioned four major Iranian exchanges, including Nobitex.
Additional information:According to Tether, the company currently works with over 340 law enforcement agencies in 65 countries and has frozen assets totalling over $4.4 billion, of which more than $2.1 billion relates to United States law enforcement operations.