Tether, which mints the world’s most widely used crypto token, is likely one of the most valuable private companies on earth, with an estimated value of $200 billion, exceeding the total share value of McDonald’s.

The company’s token, known as USDT, is a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar that has become the backbone of a parallel banking system pervading parts of the world. The token has also become a key tool for money launderers for industrial-scale scam centers, which operate out of grim office complexes across Southeast Asia. Tether’s assistance in law enforcement investigations has become highly sought-after by agencies around the world struggling to address surging crypto crime.

Because of Tether’s barebones workforce — it employs just a few hundred people — the stablecoin giant’s low overhead helps to produce astonishing profits. These riches have made Tether a rainmaker in global finance, becoming a bigger buyer of U.S. government debt than Saudi Arabia or South Korea.

But who owns this powerful and controversial firm? The company has never given a full picture publicly. Estimates of who owns how much of Tether are at odds with each other. Because most firms worth many billions are publicly traded — a distinction that generally comes with disclosures of a firm’s major owners — Tether may also place among the most opaque companies of its size.

Questions around Tether’s ownership are of growing urgency, as U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s firm Cantor Fitzgerald acquired rights to 5 percent of Tether in 2024, according to The Wall Street Journal. Such a stake could now be worth an estimated $10 billion. Like many of Tether’s ownership details, this remains unconfirmed by the company itself.

It’s a concern to have that much wealth and power built up within a small group of people with so little disclosure. — law professor Renée Jones

These unknowns epitomize a trend in which massive companies are increasingly opting to stay private instead of listing their stocks on public markets — a step that requires them to open up their books to the public. This means that regular people, investors and government officials are left with less information about companies even as they surge in size and importance. In Tether’s case, the private firm is pioneering a new global financial system while having never released results of a full audit of its reserves.

“It’s a concern to have that much wealth and power built up within a small group of people with so little disclosure,” says Renée Jones, a law professor at Boston College who has written extensively about problems posed by the opacity of large private companies. “It makes the jobs of regulators and government investigators harder when massive companies are not subject to a public disclosure regime in any country.”

In lieu of formal public disclosure of Tether’s major owners, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists examined a mix of public records and internal company files to trace clues of who owns how much of the firm. In our reporting we found that, in its early days, Tether underwent large changes to its ownership that experts say appeared unusual and we found indications that one Tether executive, Giancarlo Devasini, may have recently increased his control over the firm.

Cryptocurrency’s original mission was in part to build a financial system free from government oversight. As it pushes the bounds of corporate privacy, Tether may hint at a future in which people can engage in anonymous financial transactions using private money minted by multinational behemoths that answer to few government authorities. That world might already be here today.

artup’s tokens a readily available distribution channel. Still, Tether struggled to get  investment early on, with one founder later saying: “You can’t even imagine how stupid of an idea everyone thought it was.” Tether’s original founders ended up transferring their shares in the company to Bitfinex executives, according to “Number Go Up,” a 2023 book by Zeke Faux about crypto. These executives included Giancarlo Devasini and Jean-Louis van der Velde.

Giancarlo Devasini. Image: via Tether.to

In the years to come, they would turn Tether into a powerhouse. A former plastic surgeon, Devasini was hawking DVDs on a bitcoin forum just a decade before entering the ranks of the world’s wealthiest, according to Faux. Van der Velde, a Dutch entrepreneur, had previously dealt in electronics.

In Tether’s first few years, the two men moved company shares between themselves as if they were monopoly money. In early 2016, Devasini owned 100 percent of Tether Holdings, the British Virgin Islands firm identified as Tether’s parent company, according to shareholding records from ICIJ’s Paradise Papers trove that have not been previously reported.

In January of that year, Tether executives asked for a big change to the company’s ownership, and they wanted it quickly. In emails to their corporate administrator, Tether representatives arranged for documents to be sent to Hong Kong that would transfer at least 55% of Devasini’s shares in Tether Holdings to van der Velde, according to the records. In the transfer, another chunk of Devasini’s shares went to a firm called DigFinex Inc.

This arrangement didn’t last long. Tether ownership documents from around 2018 that ICIJ reviewed shows that, roughly two years later, van der Velde’s share of Tether had fallen to just around 15% while Devasini had risen to again become the firm’s largest single shareholder at roughly 43% ownership.

Several experts told ICIJ that such a dramatic transfer of ownership between partners is unusual, even in an early-stage startup, though not necessarily a red flag. The Tether records from around 2018 showed that Paolo Ardoino, now Tether’s CEO, owned about 3.5% of the firm at that time. Forbes estimates Ardoino now owns 20% of Tether.

The same ownership records listed a person named Kristian Hansen as owning 6.6% of Tether at the time. ICIJ was unable to reach Hansen. If retained, the stake would now be worth more than $13 billion, going by Forbes’ valuation of Tether.

The Wall Street Journal previously reported the 2018 ownership numbers for Devasini, van der Velde and two other businessmen who also held large stakes: Christopher Harborne and Stuart Hoegner. ICIJ was unable to determine their current ownership stakes. Tether did not respond to ICIJ’s questions about the ownership numbers.

Forbes ranks Devasini as the 22nd richest person on earth with an estimated net worth of $89.3 billion.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/video-cryptocurrency-global-investigation/

VIDEO WATCH: How crypto companies have empowered a shadow economy Nov 17, 2025

https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/cryptocurrency-giant-tether-is-wildly-profitable-can-it-do-more-to-stop-financial-crime/

CRYPTOCURRENCY Cryptocurrency giant Tether is wildly profitable. Can it do more to stop financial crime? Dec 01, 2025

https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/cryptocurrency-exchanges-binance-okx-money-laundering-crime/

CRYPTOCURRENCY Crypto giants moved billions linked to money launderers, drug traffickers and North Korean hackers Nov 17, 2025

Recommended reading VIDEO WATCH: How crypto companies have empowered a shadow economy Nov 17, 2025 CRYPTOCURRENCY Cryptocurrency giant Tether is wildly profitable. Can it do more to stop financial crime? Dec 01, 2025 CRYPTOCURRENCY Crypto giants moved billions linked to money launderers, drug traffickers and North Korean hackers Nov 17, 2025

Cancer drugs in India are getting new safety features to improve tracing and curb the spread of counterfeits. 

Manufacturers of all cancer drugs sold in India have until July 2027 to add a QR code or barcode to their packaging that shows the medicine’s path from factory to patient, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The new requirements apply not only to drugs manufactured in India but also to those imported into the country, such as Keytruda, a health official confirmed to The Indian Express this week.

As part of the Cancer Calculus investigation, The Indian Expressand the International Consortium of Investigative Journalistsexamined India’s counterfeit Keytruda market, where counterfeiters took advantage of cancer patients and sold them falsified versions of the medication. 

Reporting focused on a case in 2024 when police in New Delhi arrested 12 men for allegedly stealing empty Keytruda vials from hospitals and pharmacies and refilling them with antifungal medicine. The men then allegedly sold the spurious medicines at a fraction of the cost of authentic Keytruda. In India, the drug is unaffordable for most families; the market price for a 100-mg vial of Keytruda is 150,000 rupees, or more than $1,500. The case affected patients beyond India, too. At least one Nepalese woman purchased medicine from one of the accused defendants, ICIJ reported.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/cancer-calculus/cancer-drug-counterfeits-keytruda-immunotherapy/

COUNTERFEITS Counterfeiters cash in on the world’s bestselling cancer drug Apr 13, 2026

https://www.icij.org/investigations/cancer-calculus/merck-keytruda-cancer-drug-price/

OVERVIEW How Merck turned its wonder drug into a blockbuster — and priced out cancer patients worldwide Apr 13, 2026

https://www.icij.org/investigations/cancer-calculus/cancer-patients-legal-battle-keytruda-lifesaving-drug/

INSURERS ‘They deny the medication that is keeping you alive’: Patients wage grueling legal battles for lifesaving cancer drug Apr 13, 2026

Recommended reading COUNTERFEITS Counterfeiters cash in on the world’s bestselling cancer drug Apr 13, 2026 OVERVIEW How Merck turned its wonder drug into a blockbuster — and priced out cancer patients worldwide Apr 13, 2026 INSURERS ‘They deny the medication that is keeping you alive’: Patients wage grueling legal battles for lifesaving cancer drug Apr 13, 2026

The United Nations paid roughly $10 million last year to companies formerly linked to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, according to an ICIJ analysis of recently released U.N. data. The payments came after Assad’s ouster from power in December 2024.

The procurement data, released by the U.N. in July, reveals at least 11 companies that reportedly had been closely linked to the Assad regime, and which continued to receive U.N. contracts after its fall.

One of those companies is Shorouk, a Syrian security firm that received at least $11 million in U.N. contracts during Assad’s rule. In December 2025, ICIJ revealed that Shorouk was secretly owned by a branch of Assad’s intelligence services. As a result, aid money flowed directly to a government agency sanctioned for the brutal torture and murder of Syrian civilians.

Shorouk won more than $1.6 million in U.N. contracts in 2025, only slightly less than the year prior.

Another security firm, ProGuard, received $2.2 million in U.N. contracts in 2025, making it the United Nations’ largest security contractor in Syria. Under Assad, ProGuard was reportedly owned by a businessman and former parliamentarian who was sanctioned by the European Union and United Kingdom for supporting the Syrian regime.

The Syrian government’s strategy of negotiating opaque deals with Assad-linked business elites likely explains the continued existence of many U.N. contractors with links to the former regime. Syrian officials have reached financial settlements with several of the country’s oligarchs and reportedly are negotiating with others. As part of these deals, the businessmen handed over a large percentage of their assets in return for being allowed to return to work in Syria.

This policy has been undertaken in a secretive and haphazard manner that risks undermining transitional justice efforts, experts told ICIJ.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/damascus-dossier/assad-intelligence-security-united-nations-aid/

UNITED NATIONS United Nations paid $11M to Syrian security firm owned by Assad intelligence services, documents show Dec 04, 2025

https://www.icij.org/investigations/damascus-dossier/syria-assad-regime-detained-dead-search-families/

Damascus Dossier After 13 years of searching, a Syrian man learns his brother’s fate Dec 04, 2025

https://www.icij.org/investigations/damascus-dossier/about-damascus-dossier-syria-investigation/

Damascus Dossier About the Damascus Dossier investigation Dec 04, 2025

Recommended reading UNITED NATIONS United Nations paid $11M to Syrian security firm owned by Assad intelligence services, documents show Dec 04, 2025 Damascus Dossier After 13 years of searching, a Syrian man learns his brother’s fate Dec 04, 2025 Damascus Dossier About the Damascus Dossier investigation Dec 04, 2025