Thai businessmen sue Tether for freezing $42M USDT

Update: This story has been updated to reflect Ariel Givner correcting her post on X to note the men deny any involvement with the scheme and to include comments from lawyer Mark Beckett.

Two Thai businessmen sued stablecoin issuer Tether in a New York district court, claiming it illegally froze $42.4 million in Tether USDt (USDT) in October.

In a Monday court filing, the plaintiffs claimed that Tether illegally froze the $42 million without a warrant in October 2025, following an informal request from US Homeland Security Investigations.

Authorities in the Eastern District of North Carolina only issued a seizure warrant for the funds later in February 2026, as part of a $61 million pig butchering case. The warrant directed the burn and reissuance of the tokens to a government wallet.

The plaintiffs deny any connection to any illegal activity and deny the government’s allegations. They argue the warrant fails to establish probable cause and that the government has failed to make even the most basic showing that the USDT in the Addresses is subject to forfeiture.

Legal representative for the two men Mark Beckett from Beckett Law told Cointegraph in a statement: “My clients received USDT as payment in legitimate commercial transactions, in the normal course of business.”
The lawsuit tests the freezing authority of stablecoin issuers. It also requests that authorities unfreeze the funds and pay potential punitive damages. 

“This situation demonstrates that the government can seize stablecoins used in legitimate business transactions on the basis of inaccurate information and then simply call Tether and tell Tether to freeze what are supposedly ‘digital dollars’ on the basis of those faulty assumptions,” Beckett said.

Corporate and intellectual property attorney Ariel Givner initially said on X that the complaint did not deny the men’s involvement in the scam, but she corrected that statement later to acknowledge the men “vigorously and categorically deny the government’s allegations.”

In a separate case in February, a US court sentenced a dual national of China and St. Kitts and Nevis to 20 years in prison for orchestrating a $73 million pig butchering scam.

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