Tether, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency platforms, has emerged as one of the leading payment methods for money launderers and fraudsters operating in south-east Asia, the UN has warned. According to a report published on Monday by the UN’s office on drugs and crime, Tether’s crypto token, also known as tether, is at the heart of an exploding industry of scams, including those that engineer false romantic connections to gain a victim’s trust before luring them to transfer large sums — a strategy commonly referred to as “pig butchering”. “In recent years, law enforcement and financial intelligence authorities have reported the rapidly growing use of sophisticated, high-speed money laundering . . . teams specialising in underground tether,” the report said. The evolution of cryptocurrency, alongside other rapid technological developments, has also galvanised the decades-old practice among south-east Asia’s organised crime gangs of using black market casinos to launder illicit funds. “Online gambling platforms, especially those operating illegally, have emerged as among the most popular vehicles for cryptocurrency-based money launderers, particularly for those using Tether,” the report says. Jeremy Douglas of the UN’s office on Drugs and Crime told the FT: “Organised crime has effectively created a parallel banking system using new technologies, and the proliferation of loosely or entirely unregulated online casinos together with crypto has supercharged the region’s criminal ecosystem.” Tether’s digital token is a stablecoin — a cryptocurrency that typically tracks a hard currency to stabilise the price. Tether is pegged to the US dollar and allows traders to move in and out of crypto trades, unlike cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin that are not pegged to hard currencies and are predominantly used for speculation. It is the largest of its kind with roughly $95bn in circulation.
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