Tether has come under renewed scrutiny after reports tied Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to large-scale crypto movements using USDT, raising questions about enforcement versus exposure. TRM Labs said IRGC-linked entities moved close to $1 billion in cryptocurrency since early 2023, largely through USDT on the Tron network and routed through two UK-registered exchanges, Zedcex and Zedxion, allegedly to bypass sanctions. The reported figure refers to transaction volume, not assets seized or frozen. TRM Labs traced deposits, withdrawals, and wallet infrastructure tied to those exchanges, with IRGC-associated flows totaling about $24 million in 2023, rising to roughly $619 million in 2024 and about $410 million in 2025, most activity settled in USDT.
Most of the funds moved in USDT, reflecting the stablecoin’s liquidity across offshore trading venues. Investigators said Tron’s low transaction fees and fast settlement made it the preferred network for these transfers. Tether has repeatedly said it cooperates with law enforcement and sanctions requests and maintains the ability to freeze USDT at the address level when wallets are formally sanctioned or flagged by authorities. Separately, enforcement actions show far smaller amounts were frozen.
In September 2025, Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing published a list of 187 wallet addresses it linked to IRGC activity. Following that designation, Tether blacklisted 39 of those addresses, freezing about $1.5 million in USDT held in those wallets, according to Elliptic. The $1 billion figure reflects cumulative crypto movement, while the freeze involved only balances present in sanctioned wallets when action occurred, and Tether has not confirmed freezing anything close to $1 billion in a single enforcement move.
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