In July 2021, the US Department of Justice announced that it was investigating whether Tether executives committed bank fraud. Indeed, the authorities accuse the issuer of USDT of having hidden transactions related to cryptos from banks, at the beginning of its activities. Since then, the investigation has stalled a lot. For many observers, this would be due to the fact that the judicial authorities did not collect enough evidence. From now on, the authorities hope to go there more quickly.
A judge with experience
Monday, Bloomberg reported that by order of the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York will now lead the investigation of Tether’s bank fraud charges. So the case will be in the hands of Judge Damian Williams. As a reminder, the investigation aims to determine whether the company’s leaders hid crypto transactions from banks. By choosing Judge Williams, the Department of Justice wants to ensure that it has passed the case on to an experienced magistrate.
In recent years, the lawyer has led the most important legal cases in the digital asset industry. In turn, the court for the Southern District of New York has heard a lot of cases relating to the crypto industry. The most famous are the bankruptcies of lenders Celsius Network and Voyager Digital. The jurisdiction has also collaborated with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to conduct several crypto-related criminal cases.
The New York judge and court have become crypto references.
Does Tether have anything to be ashamed of?
Last week, Tether has writing in a blog post he “maintained an open dialogue with law enforcement, assisting the Justice Department in some of the largest cybercrime and security cases in the nation”. The issuer of USDT also appears not to have received an official note stating that it is accused of bank fraud.
“Tether executives have not interacted with the Justice Department in any investigation for well over a year and authorities do not appear to be actively investigating Tether”we read in the note.
Tether is a regular at untangled with American justice. Last year he paid around $19 million to avoid prosecution in a fraud case. This involved the crypto firm Bitfinex. In October 2021, Bloomberg has published an investigation in which it implicates the responsibility of the financial director of Tether (USDT), Giancarlo Devasini. The latter would use the company’s reserves to make its own investments.
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