The National Bureau for Counter Financing (NBCTF) has announced that it will be seizing 187 crypto wallets with links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). As per the official statement, these wallets were used to process around $1.5 billion in Tether transactions.
This development intersects with the growing complexity of the crypto space. Various countries, Israel included, have had to manage the popularity of these digital assets. On the one hand, more consumers are finding both avenues to make money and chances to spend tokens using cryptocurrency. The success of the crypto industry means that more products are being launched all the time. Crypto services such as wallets are also seeing a lot of attention as new crypto coins are launched.
And with major options like Bitcoin seeing new all-time price highs as well as new investment vehicles in the US and around the world, this shows no signs of stopping. At the same time, various world powers are having to clamp down on the misuse of these tokens, both for personal gain and political motivations.
Tether, the crypto project behind the USDT tokens, has blacklisted 39 of the addresses. This led to about $1.5 million being frozen within them as the investigation continues.
“I hereby order the seizure of the property and of any other virtual asset that is found or will be found in the wallets, as stated, in order to confiscate the same subject to the provisions of section 66 of the law,” said the Minister of Defense.
According to Elliptic, a crypto analytics company, it is still left to be determined if all of the flagged addresses are indeed tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard or if any have legitimate connections to crypto service providers. It’s been noted that several fringe political groups have turned to cryptocurrency as a means to finance their activities. The nature of digital assets means that they cannot be tracked as easily as fiat currency. Even then, freezing such assets is very difficult unless the provider themselves gets involved, as is the case with Tether.
A popular example is the Lazarus group, a North Korean hacker group that is believed to be government-sponsored. Reports have suggested that the group steals hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto from various exchanges to finance the country’s nuclear weapons program in defiance of U.S. sanctions.
It is worth noting that Iranian crypto exchange Nobitex saw $81.7 million stolen in a hack earlier this year by a pro-Israel group. Needless to say, various sides of the political aisle are using cryptocurrency for their own means.
As this investigation unfolds, it will be interesting to see just how far-reaching the Revolutionary Guard’s connections in the crypto world stretch and how these funds were acquired. However, as many crypto experts will state, this is far from the last of such incidents we will see.
Hopefully, as better crypto laws are implemented around the world, fewer establishments will suffer politically motivated hacks, and consumers’ funds will remain safe.
