Iran terror victims ask U.S. court to order transfer of $344 million in frozen USDT

Plaintiffs who hold U.S. court judgments against Iran for terrorism are seeking an order in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to force Tether to effectively confiscate roughly 344.1 million USDT tied to two wallet addresses linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which are sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). In a motion filed Thursday, the plaintiffs asked the judge to require Tether to "zero out" the USDT in those wallets and reissue an equivalent amount of tokens to wallet addresses designated by the plaintiffs. They contend Tether has the technical means to do so and that New York's turnover law, together with federal antiterrorism enforcement rules, obligates the company to comply. The filing points to prior instances in which Tether has destroyed and reissued tokens, including compliance with FBI seizure orders and a separate Ohio case. The judgments the plaintiffs are attempting to enforce total about $2.42 billion, reflecting compensatory and punitive damages across multiple cases tied to Iranian terrorism over more than 20 years. Tether froze the wallets on April 24, the same day OFAC added the addresses to its sanctions list.