Tether Teams Up With UN Agency to Tackle Illegal Crypto Activity in Africa

With crypto gaining traction in Africa as the third-fastest growing market globally, concerns about illicit funds moving through the crypto space are on the rise. Recently, INTERPOL revealed they found $260 million in bogus crypto and fiat transactions across the continent. Tether is making moves to establish itself in African markets by taking on crypto-related crimes. They're funding and raising awareness for civil organizations focused on fighting human trafficking and providing support for victims. It's clear that Tether is eyeing better partnerships with African nations, positioning itself as the go-to stablecoin for everyday transactions in various countries around the continent. This is all backed by their commitment to transparency and solid regulatory practices. Seems like a pretty clever marketing strategy by Tether in Africa, right? What do you all think?

I’m not African so I do not represent their opinions but to me this seems overall a good thing. Tether definitely knows their market. Africa has been a steady force in the crypto industry and partnerships like this only fosters it even more. It’s also a good thing that they are trying to address fraudulent crimes as to make crypto grow more and cleaner in the region. Curious if Africans think this will bring much stricter regulations.

They are already on the Africa market. It could be a marketing strategy, but I consider this partnership more like seeking collaboration and permission to track down some individuals and addresses linked to those individuals and freeze assets, which is what they are actively doing this period. Once an address is suspected to be linked to a scam, they take action first before asking questions later.

If this partnership will help to tackle cybercrime and digital fraud, it's a welcome development. Africa has become a hub for human trafficking and other crimes, and some of the proceeds from these crimes are in crypto. It is also not just about curbing crime. Tether's collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is also for social corporate responsibility since it is promoting cybersecurity education and public awareness. This organisation also has plans to teach, mentor and give grants to youths in some African countries. It's good news.

This may look like a good development but I'm wondering how they will achieve anything significant from this since the criminal can easily switch their operation to another chain and can even hide their money through mixers. Although my knowledge is not broad in this security aspect but if it is what I have been hearing recently, it confirms that Tether actually have coin freezing abilities embedded in their code and that makes it risky for both criminals and legitimate users. I will follow on this development to see where this is going but as a precaution, it will be safer for people to consider holding their assets in Bitcoin and not in anything else.

That's absolutely were those fraudsters and politicians with their money laundering gets it wrong in crypto, they always believe the digitality, unregulated and the height of anonymities of the technology can shelter them like a safer to accommodate them with their fraudulent activities. It's also good to see how speedy crypto adoption is sailing globally. It's also a cheer's seeing how Africans are being fully partaking in this great financial technology. With how much scammers and the money launderers had not been comfortable with how the security agencies are tracking them within the Crypto in the US, maybe some lunatics from other far regions may think it'll be difficult for the international community securities to apprehend them. Indeed crypto as bitcoin is a safe haven but not an avenue for scam free.

I am from Africa and I don't think this is a way to regulate crypto adoption, simply because I don't think USDT Tether is a pure cryptocurrency but a cryptographic form of fiat money. With real cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and monero, big authorities with big partenerships can't fight criminal use. I want to deifferentiate between increasing adoption of stablecoins and the adoption of cryptocurrency use in general. Those are two different things and UN can deal with stablecoins but never with real cryptocurrencies. Anothor major point is about the situation being the same whenever tether has been used, why to focus on Africa in particular?

It's fundamentally good. We're all responsible for each other's safety, security, and well-being. My concern as always, however, is the right balance. Tether has control over its entire supply. They can freeze their asset wherever it is and whoever owns it. They can blacklist addresses. That's almost $200 billion of assets in various owners. Do we have the guarantee that such power can be used responsibly? Not only that. Given that it's centralized and is operating at the mercy of powerful governments and their agencies, how steadfast they could be in the face of unfair pressure or command and abuses? Are we sure what they're doing in Africa is sincere or is it only a guise for something else? Are they willing or are they just being used? Can they say no to these powerful UN bodies? In any case, Tether is an example why Bitcoin is relevant.

In every chain they have freezing abilities embedded all the same and you can trace bridged money easily using bridge explorer and every single one of them have it. I'm sure they got all the sophisticated tool to trace the stablecoin, the same way $usdc use CCTP to bridge money inter chain and keep the information. Freezing money is piece of cake for them, even if it's in some random chain. The freezing ability isn't even a news anymore. They all have it and one of the purpose is to combat illicit crypto flow like mentioned in this topic.

Tether is centralised, that can't be changed, so they have every right to do what they feel it's best, crimes are increasing in Africa and so many people in Africa are into cyber fraud and scams, if this move is going to bring many criminals to justice I won't stand against the idea. I stand for privacy but crime is what I can't stand, even if tether is not centralised stable coin it changes nothing, many people are looking for privacy way because it helps their crime ways to stay out of sight, criminals are the ones giving privacy a bad look in crypto space. Tether stable coin already have the freezing capability, this means we are all under their radar, we are been watched all the time and if any criminal funds are detected by them they will freeze the balance, it is not a bad thing to be honest.

An opposed business model to Binance. In the times of the early exchange (Binance) Law enforcement did not ask for agreements,

criminals may switch to other stablecoins, there is a wide choice now, such as USDC and USDS (formerly DAI). the trend toward controlling financial flows is not encouraging because criminals will find ways to evade control and ordinary people will suffer.

Really nice that they're putting the effort to combat illicit cash flow but to me, this is a fruitless endeavor because some smuggler would still be able to get what they want and I'm sure that it will be a difficult thing to do anyway given that cryptocurrency is supposed to be pseudonymous if not totally anonymous and I believe that the UN should probably put more money into putting more kids to school, developing a better foreign aid or something, and maybe even helping alleviate hunger and poverty in the continent, those stuff will help more people compared to this partnership.

It is pretty much inevitable for Tether to forge alliances with law enforcement, as it has become very clear they are the most popular stablecoin on the market and also they want to stay full compliant with laws both in the United States and also in the European Union, that is good for their business (Tether is a business after all, isn't it). They may be targeting Africa first before other markets like those in south America, due to the level of lawlessness there is in Africa, only comparable to criminality levels in the south of Asia. I believe it is okey, Tether has never sold itself as a decentralized stablecoin, they obviously want to have the power to seize, freeze and oversee whatever addresses they want, for the sake of being in good terms with regulators.

Criminality is similar worldwide. No country is free of it, just in Antártica there is hardly any. It os a % of each people.    I remember a guy saying Belgium is free of crime because he wasn't aware of the Childporn Ring  in the capital. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux When I left Germany the country became aware of being the washing machine of all known and unknown mafias groups. https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/05/26/germanys-criminal-underworld-is-coming-out-of-the-shadows/

This seems like a dangerous partnership for any organization directly involved with the running of a cryptocurrency, because it is not really their job to help police it. It's like the central bank of countries being involved in fraud investigations of a realtor or random other company. The police should be investigating how these crimes are committed and gathering evidence, which might include crypto wallets, but the trouble is these big guns often get turned onto the smaller players instead. What starts off as a few grand investigations, which probably end up going nowhere due to corruption, soon becomes used for tracking all the smaller transactions which might be avoiding taxes here and there - but the average person doesn't care about that when payment networks and banks are ripping people off to a huge degree.

Being able to arbitrarily freeze someone’s assets isn’t a good thing for liberty or decentralization. This does not seem to be Tether’s concern however. They are more interested in maintaining a clean reputation to protect their profits. As a centralized company that is offering financial services they are required to comply with anti-money laundering laws. We hear lots of misinformation about criminals using stablecoins by anti-crypto politicians, but the truth is that Tether works very closely with law enforcement. Using USDT is one of the worst ways to launder money. Tether has already lost ground in Europe because of MiCA regulation. That is why they are pivoting to Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Tether. Tether!!!! The company which has been criticized for years for being non-transparent about its activities is now partnering up with the UN to promote "secure and transparent digital ecosystems" in Africa. That said (and I hate that I'm about to defend them but) the problem they're going after is a legitimate one. Crypto adoption in Africa is exploding and crypto criminal networks aren't stupid, they see the same opportunities everyone else does. Transfereing money between countries without oversight from traditional banking. That's useful to send money to the family and send money to the family but it's useful to the trafficking networks. The operation by the international agency Interpol that uncovered $260 million provides an indication of the extent of this. And human trafficking specifically is different to other financial crimes in that there are direct victims, people being exploited and hurt. So if this partnership helps even a fraction of those people it's worth it. The press release discusses education and awareness and victim support. All fine. All good things to do. But the real impact would be Tether actively working with the law enforcement to track and freeze illicit addresses. Are they doing that? The press release doesn't really say and that's the part that would really matter most. Your point about this being a marketing play to dominate the African markets is probably right. Tether wants to be the stablecoin of choice throughout the continent and the UN partnership gives them a credibility that their competitors don't have. It's strategic, it's calculated and it might even mercifully help people. Those things aren't mutually exclusive but we ought to be clear on what's actually going on here versus what the story is.

This is more like dogs eat dogs thing, Tether is a big fraud that has hide within the interest of the government for long term but as they see that the battle is coming to been lost, they joined them. It's like saying, "Yea we know we are dirty and we have not been transparent but we want to work with you guys to make the financial system clean as possible ". They have freeze Venezuela alleged USDT wallet, now I'm expecting to see who Trump will go for next and then free their account too. They shouldn't bother come to Africa, we don't have much to give but we are very okay. I don't see any value of UN in Africa in the last 10 years, so I don't know the reason for the new interests in illicit crypto flows to Africa. What about US and some other countries but I guess I forgot UN has long stop exist, it's now UNITED Nation controlled by US. All the fundings comes from US, there is nothing of benefit this can add to Africa but chaos and dehumanizing.

There's actually nothing of long-term benefit they'll offer Africa, it's only but fulfilling their personal desires to control African faithful. Point of correction Africa has a lot to give from mineral resources to previous metals and radioactive elements, we've it all and they've come with a program that looks very normal and helpful but it has interests hidden underneath and when little of African use Tether, they're indirectly at the financial next of the UN, it's funny but very true.