30s Summary

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) has praised stablecoin maker Tether for assisting in the retrieval of approximately 10,000 Canadian dollars ($7,186) worth of stolen digital money. The OPP’s Cyber Investigations Team worked with Tether to return the funds to the victim. This is part of Tether’s broader effort in tackling cybercrimes, having previously frozen money and blacklisted addresses to prevent illegal transactions. In December 2023, Tether froze wallets linked to individuals sanctioned by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, indicating compliance with counter-terrorism efforts.

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The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) recently gave a big shout-out to Tether, a stablecoin maker, for helping them bust a thief who stole around 10,000 Canadian dollars ($7,186) in digital money from a person. Thanks to Tether’s quick thinking and support, the money was handed back to the person it was stolen from.

This wasn’t just about Tether playing hero, though. The OPP’s Cyber Investigations Team worked close and hard with them, and due to this amazing teamwork, the stolen money was retrieved and returned. Addison Hunter, a detective with the OPP, even called Tether’s support key in getting the money back.

But Tether CEO Paolo Adoino doesn’t want to stop here. He’s eager for the company to aid in taking on cybercrimes worldwide, and he’s made it clear that they’re all set to join hands with cops across the globe to bring all those wrongdoers down a notch and support victims.

Historically, Tether’s been on good terms with the enforcement agencies. They’ve been assisting them and freezing money on their request for years. For instance, back in July 2020, Tether put freeze on 39 Ethereum network addresses that had about $46 million in USDT (that’s Tether’s digital currency). This was done to stop any shady dealings in partnership with the authorities.

Later in the same vein, they teamed up with Bitfinex, a cryptocurrency exchange, to freeze over $33 million USDt that had been taken in a hack of the KuKoin exchange, which saw the popular exchange lose a whopping $200 million. And they’ve been at it since; blacklisting numerous addresses and freezing a huge amount of USDt back in January 2022.

Most recently, in December 2023, Tether released a statement stating that they’re freezing the wallets connected to persons and entities sanctioned by the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control. This was in response to US lawmakers putting the heat on the firm to uphold sanctions and checking whether the fintech firm was a conduit for terrorists to wash their dirty money and raise funds.