US authorities seize about $84.2 million from accounts of Tether counterparty Capstone

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Federal prosecutors in the US state of California have seized a total of about $84.2 million from the bank accounts and cryptocurrency wallets of US payments company Capstone, which has been reported to have ties to Tether. Reuters reported the move on September 25. According to court documents, authorities seized about $81 million from an account Capstone held at Wells Fargo and about $2 million from an account at JPMorgan Chase, and also seized about $1.2 million worth of the US dollar-pegged stablecoin Tether. Capstone is a payments company operating a money transmission service registered in the US state of Montana, and in a filing seeking civil forfeiture, prosecutors argued that the company's executives described its business as information technology-related when opening the bank accounts. According to prosecutors, Capstone processed numerous payments for two cryptocurrency-related firms through a contract with a bank based in the Caribbean nation of Dominica. The seizure is not a penalty against Tether itself; at issue is the banking relationship of the bank where Tether placed some of its assets and Capstone's dealings, which are said to have processed payments at the bank's direction.

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US authorities seized ~$1.2M in Tether from Capstone's accounts, but the article states the seizure is not a penalty against Tether itself, targeting Capstone's banking relationship.

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