🫆 U.S.🇺🇸: authorities seize USD 84 million from accounts belonging to a payments company linked to Tether and Bitfinex

🫆 U.S.🇺🇸: authorities seize USD 84 million from accounts belonging to a payments company linked to Tether and Bitfinex

The case arose because Capstone illegally transferred hundreds of millions of dollars.

🤔 Allegations: Capstone operated without a license, concealed the nature of its activities, and processed payments for "hundreds of individuals and legal entities" on behalf of two unnamed companies. They were later identified as Tetherand its affiliated exchange Bitfinex.

🤔 Scam: through Capstone, fraudsters posing as FBI agents converted cash stolen from elderly victims into stablecoins.

🤔 Scheme: the alleged scheme involved a caller posing as the “security department of Sberbank” of the card issuer, who contacted an elderly cardholder and claimed that her card had been used in an attempted weapons purchase. A second fraudster, posing as an FBI agent, then continued the deception and demanded money as “cooperation with the investigation.” This is a known impersonation-fraud scheme.

🤔 Law-enforcement measures: prosecutors froze around USD 84 million in Capstone accounts, while the FBI executed search warrants at the Sacramento home of the company's owners or controlling persons, Kotaro Shimogori and Mary Jean Thompson.

🤔 The most relevant point: Tether became linked to the case through its relationship with the small EQIBank(Dominica🇩🇲), an online payments specialist that, according to prosecutors, directed Capstone to send and receive money on behalf of Tether. Tether confirmed that it was a customer of EQIBank and said the assets it held there represented just 0.034% of the group's total assets. Both Tether and Bitfinex said they had no knowledge of Capstone's alleged fraudulent conduct.

🤔 Conclusion: the case highlights the difficulties Tether has faced in accessing traditional banking services, despite the scale of its business, and its relationship with a small financial institution in an offshore jurisdiction. Meanwhile, prosecutors allege that Capstone gained access to the U.S. financial system by presenting itself to banks as an information technology company when opening its accounts.

😀 Context: as of Friday, September 25, 2026, the market capitalization of USDT stood at approximately USD 184 billion.
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