Bloomberg has learned about the US and UK investigation into Garantex
The US and UK authorities are investigating USDT transfers through the Russian Garantex exchange in the amount of $20 billion. This is reported by Bloomberg, citing informed sources.
According to them, the inspection is carried out as part of the fight against sanctions evasion.
All transactions of the stablecoin were conducted after April 2022, when Garantex was added to the US sanctions list.
Tether, for its part, said it was working with law enforcement agencies to ensure compliance. The sources noted that there were no suggestions of wrongdoing on the part of the stablecoin issuer.
The total capitalization of Tether at the time of writing is $104 billion, according to CoinGecko. Thus, according to the US and UK authorities, a fifth of all coins in circulation passed through Garantex.
The new investigation is fraught with more malicious tracking of the deposit addresses of Garantex users and counterparties, as well as additional sanctions. Dmitry Machikhin, founder and CEO of BitOK, stated this in a ForkLog comment.
"That is, they will pursue in every possible way, throw accusations, real and unreal. We need to be ready for this and adapt somehow. And to begin with, abandon foreign AML systems in favor of a national standard," he noted.
According to the expert, this will avoid linking trading platforms to Russian users. However, this will not be a panacea if Garantex's real involvement in illegal operations is revealed.
"If there are some illegal things there - namely crime, and not political sanctions — then the consequences can be much more serious and no AML will save here," concluded Machikhin.
Anton Shkurenko, technical consultant for the SmartSwap project, believes that the United States traditionally views people outside its borders "as potential criminals."
"Both platform owners and their customers, who provided their passport data, suffer from their decisions. The blocking of assets, including Tether on non—custodial wallets, occurs within the limits of US laws, but it is often unclear for what reasons you may be charged," he said.
