U.S. Law Firm Asks Court to Force Tether to Hand Over $344M in Frozen USDT Tied to Iran

ChainCatcher, citing CoinDesk, reported that U.S. law firm Charles Gerstein has petitioned the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to order Tether to transfer more than $344 million in frozen USDT to victims holding unenforced terrorism-related judgments against Iran. Tether froze the tokens after the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the associated Tron wallet as belonging to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The plaintiffs contend that because OFAC has identified the wallet as IRGC-owned and Tether has already immobilized the assets, Tether could reissue an equivalent amount of USDT to a wallet controlled by the victims' attorneys. The filing fits into Gerstein's broader effort to use crypto platforms' ability to freeze and move digital assets to help enforce terrorism-related judgments. The firm noted the case differs from the Arbitrum matter involving funds tied to North Korean hackers, as OFAC has explicitly designated the wallet as IRGC-owned, making ownership more straightforward. Gerstein has pursued similar approaches in the Arbitrum frozen-funds dispute and the Railgun DAO case.