DOJ Seeks to Seize $500K in USDT from Iran Drone Provider’s Non-public Pockets – Decrypt

The US Lawyer’s Workplace for the District of Massachusetts has filed a civil forfeiture motion to recuperate roughly $584,741 in Tether (USDT) stablecoins from an Iranian nationwide who offered expertise to the Iranian navy.

The tokens have been stated to be stored in an unhosted cryptocurrency pockets, although authorities gave no additional particulars.

Mohammad Abedini, 39, is founder and managing director of San’at Danesh Rahpooyan Aflak Co. (SDRA), an Iranian agency that provides expertise utilized in drones to the nation’s navy.

SDRA supplies navigation tools to the agency that produces Shahed drones, which have been extensively utilized in Iran’s drone strikes, by Russia within the conflict in Ukraine, and by a number of Center Jap navy teams.

In January 2024, three U.S. service members have been killed on a navy base in northern Jordan. Later evaluation revealed that an Iranian Shahed UAV utilizing SDRA’s Sepehr Navigation System was chargeable for the assault, in response to the DOJ.

Abedini is charged with offering materials help to overseas terrorist organizations leading to dying, in addition to conspiring to acquire delicate U.S. expertise utilized in navy drones. He was detained by Italian authorities in December 2024, however was launched in January 2025. Per the DOJ, he’s now believed to be in Iran.

In line with claims from the nonprofit Iran Watch, from 2016 to 2024, Abedini and his enterprise associate allegedly smuggled U.S.-origin electronics and technical knowledge from American producers and re-exported them from Switzerland to Iran. As a result of the gadgets have been so small, they might reportedly have been carried in a suitcase. These allegations haven’t but been confirmed.

Can the federal government seize crypto from personal wallets?

Seizing crypto from personal wallets isn’t simple. Not like centralized exchanges corresponding to Coinbase or Binance, there is no such thing as a middleman for governments to compel—pockets homeowners management their very own keys. Nonetheless, the U.S. authorities has managed to do it earlier than.

In 2022, the DOJ seized 94,000 BTC (value roughly $3.6 billion on the time) from Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, who carried out the record-breaking Bitfinex hack.

In line with the announcement, investigators traced the stolen Bitcoin by a number of mixers and finally positioned the couple’s personal keys after having access to a web based cloud storage account.

In different situations, federal investigators have carried out digital forensics on confiscated laptops in an effort to acquire personal keys, as within the case of Silk Highway founder Ross Ulbricht.