Tether CEO now slams the WSJ report of a federal investigation after false allegations claimed the company faced AML violations.
The U.S. federal government is reportedly investigating Tether, the issuer of the largest stablecoin, USDT, for possible violations of anti-money laundering regulations and sanctions, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal on Friday.
In response to this news, Bitcoin’s price dropped significantly, falling from $68,600 to $66,589 — currently 66,750 at the time of this writing.
Prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office are looking into whether USDT is being used by third parties to bypass legal restrictions.
However, Tether’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino, disputed these claims, stating on Twitter that there is no ongoing investigation.
“As we informed the WSJ, there is no indication that Tether is under investigation,” Ardoino wrote on X.
“The WSJ is just repeating old rumors.
Full stop.”
“At Tether, we deal regularly and directly with law enforcement officials to help prevent rogue nations, terrorists and criminals from misusing USDt.
We would know if we are being investigated as the article falsely claimed.
Based on that, we can confirm that the allegations in the article are unequivocally false,” the CEO later tweeted again.
Tether, one of the oldest stablecoins, has consistently met redemption requests and maintained its peg.
Despite this, there have been long-standing suspicions regarding the transparency of its $100 billion reserves.
Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick has asserted that his company manages the U.S. Treasury bills that back Tether’s tokens.
Tether has faced criticism from both Coinbase and Circle for allegedly enabling terrorist financing.
A representative from Circle stated in February, “I hope they’re taking this seriously, given Tether’s reputation and the data indicating their involvement in terrorist financing and other harmful activities.”
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