Turkish authorities announced the freezing of assets amounting over $500 million on January 30, belonging to Veysel Sahin. The Istanbul Chief Prosecutor revealed that an unnamed cryptocurrency company froze assets at the request of the Turkish government. Sahin faces accusations of operating an illegal gambling platform and laundering money.
This company is the issuer of the $185 billion market cap stablecoin USDT, Tether Holdings SA. The company recently actively assisted numerous governments globally in cracking down on different cryptocurrency-related criminal activities. These include money laundering, drug trafficking, as well as sanctions evasion.
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, stated in a previous interview with Bloomberg News that law enforcement reached out to them. They provided relevant information. After verifying it, Tether took action in accordance with the laws of the relevant jurisdiction. They follow this process when cooperating with US Department of Justice, FBI, as well as other agencies.
Further comment on the case was not provided by Tether. The attempts of Bloomberg to contact Sahin were unsuccessful. A Turkish official also refused to disclose the name of the company mentioned in the statement of the prosecutor.
The €460 million (around $544 million) in assets frozen in this operation is part of a large-scale law enforcement action in Turkey. The total frozen assets connected to the case now exceed $1 billion. Turkish TV channel NTV reports that another individual is under investigation for alleged money laundering and illegal gambling. This comes just days after the asset freeze of Sahin, whose $500 million worth of cryptocurrency assets were also frozen. Currently, it is unclear whether this asset freeze involves tokes issued by Tether.
A Turkish official spoke on condition of anonymity to Bloomberg about sensitive legal matters. He revealed that authorities, by tracing fund flows and analyzing cryptocurrency assets, discovered the financial traces of this suspected illicit income. They added that authorities will carry out similar asset freezes in the future against individuals involved in illegal gambling and related payment systems.
