Yesterday, Tether announced that it received a ransom note from some extortionists who were demanding around 500 BTCs from the firm, this equates to around $22 million. According to the crypto company, the extortionists threatened to release some harmful documents which would cause some level of harm to the Bitcoin ecosystem. The firm, however, stated that it would not be making the payment.
While we believe this is a pretty sad attempt at a shakedown, we take it seriously. We have reported the forged communications and the associated ransom demand to law enforcement. As always, we will fully support law enforcement in an investigation of this extortion scheme. 5/5
— Tether (@Tether_to) February 28, 2021
Tether also went on to state that the documents which are making the rounds presently about exchanges between the firm and Deltec Bank & Trust and others are false. The documents claim that the leading stablecoin was not fully backed by the US Dollars
A statement released by Tether says that it “believes this is a pretty sad attempt at a shakedown, we take it seriously. We have reported the forged communications and the associated ransom demand to law enforcement. As always, we will fully support law enforcement in an investigation of this extortion scheme.”
Recently, we reported that Tether and Bitfinex were made to pay a fine of $18.5 million by the authorities in New York one accusation of “falsifying the degree to which its stablecoins were backed by fiat collateral.” The authorities also barred the crypto company from transacting with New Yorkers and mandated the crypto firms to submit periodic reports of their reserves so as to ensure more transparency.
