Federal prosecutors in California have moved to keep tens of millions of dollars taken from accounts and digital wallets tied to Capstone Ltd., a Montana-registered payments company that authorities say handled large transfers connected to crypto clients.
The action, laid out in a civil forfeiture complaint filed in the Eastern District of California, does not require a criminal conviction against the account holders.
Instead, the government argues the money itself was involved in unlicensed money transmission and other alleged misconduct.
According to court papers, Capstone presented itself to major U.S. banks as an ordinary information technology firm rather than a money-services business.
Prosecutors say that description helped the company open and keep accounts at Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase while moving other people’s funds.
They allege Capstone operated as an unlicensed money transmitter in multiple states, a status that typically requires licenses and heightened compliance because the business is sending value on behalf of customers.
The seized property is itemized in the complaint.
Roughly $79.11 million came from a Wells Fargo Securities account in Capstone’s name.
Additional balances of about $1.86 million at Wells Fargo Bank and $2.06 million at JPMorgan Chase were also taken.
Authorities further listed about 1.18 million USDT, Tether’s dollar-pegged token, from two cryptocurrency addresses.
Combined, the targeted assets total about $84.2 million.
Reporting based on the filing and people familiar with the matter has identified a Dominica-licensed digital bank, EQIBank, as the institution directing much of Capstone’s activity.
That bank, according to those accounts, used the US processor to move customer money through American banking rails.
Tether has said it was a customer of EQIBank, which processed wires related to USDT issuance and redemptions, but has denied any knowledge of the conduct prosecutors attribute to Capstone.
The company described its holdings at EQIBank as less than 0.034 percent of group assets.
The Justice Department’s papers do not accuse Tether or affiliated exchange Bitfinex of wrongdoing.
The complaint also describes a separate strand of alleged activity: converting cash obtained through impersonation scams into stablecoins and sending the tokens onward, minus fees, to a foreign counterparty.
Prosecutors say those flows were commingled with Capstone’s broader payment processing.
Capstone’s counsel has denied wrongdoing, said the firm cooperated with investigators, and indicated it would seek to dismiss the forfeiture case.
EQIBank has separately argued that a large share of its own monetary holdings sat in the seized accounts and has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to recover the property.
The episode underscores a familiar tension in digital asset markets.
Large stablecoin issuers still rely on a patchwork of offshore banks and US intermediaries to reach the dollar system.
When those intermediaries are accused of hiding their true business from banks, the funds in the pipeline become vulnerable to civil seizure even if the best-known clients are not charged.
Capstone’s owners, named in filings as Kotaro Shimogori and Mary Jeanne Thompson, remain at the center of the dispute as the government seeks to keep the cash and tokens and the company prepares its defense.