The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned eight crypto wallets associated with Yemen’s Houthi movement, or Ansarallah.
As per the announcement, this action is part of continued efforts to restrict the group’s financial activities, specifically its reported involvement in maritime shipping and arms sales from Russia to pro-Iran factions in Yemen.
These wallets, which all contain USDT stablecoins on the Tron blockchain, are blacklisted. All U.S.-based crypto exchanges and financial services must block their access.
Additionally, U.S. citizens are barred from dealing with these wallets or any company on OFAC’s sanctions list. By marking these wallets around the world, OFAC hopes to block these wallets from being utilized to transfer or liquefy assets.
The Houthis were officially designated as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) organization by the U.S. on February 16, 2024. Although this designation already placed sweeping sanctions, today’s action adds specificity by naming the specific wallets that need to be blocked.
This is not the first time that OFAC has focused on crypto financial networks. It has sanctioned exchanges and services such as Garantex, Suex, Hydra, Chatex, Bitpapa, and NetEx24 for helping to channel illegal transactions in earlier years. Most of the platforms were employed to clean ransomware payments or perform operations with sanctioned banks.
USDT on Tron is the largest stablecoin by volume, so it’s a common option among those who want to transfer money anonymously. By targeting and sanctioning these wallets, OFAC is cracking down on how digital currencies are used to fund sanctioned entities.
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