A Court Cleared Three 9/11 Groups to Pursue $344 Million in Blocked Crypto
The court granted permission to pursue. It did not decide who owns the money.

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What the court did on July 9

In April 2026, Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned and blocked two digital wallets holding roughly $344 million in Tether tokens, adding the wallet addresses to the Central Bank of Iran's sanctions listing. Note the word the court uses for ownership: the assets are "purportedly owned by" the Central Bank of Iran. Who owns them is the first of the four questions the court left open.

Three groups of 9/11 plaintiffs, the Havlish, Breitweiser, and Ryan groups, asked the court in Manhattan for permission to pursue that money. On July 9, Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn granted all three motions (In Re: Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001, No. 1:03-md-01570 (S.D.N.Y.), ECF 12174).

Section 1610(c) of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act is a procedural checkpoint with two requirements: that the foreign government was properly given notice of the judgment, and that a reasonable period has passed since the judgment was entered. Judge Netburn found both. That finding is not a formality. On April 14 the same court made the same kind of finding as to purportedly Iranian bitcoin, and granted it for all of the moving plaintiffs other than the Eaton plaintiffs (ECF 11973). The Eaton plaintiffs did not clear it, which is how you know it is a real test.

So those families now have permission to pursue the Tether by any lawful means, including attachment or execution.

The four questions the order does not answer

The court was explicit. As it has stressed before, section 1610(c) orders "are not writs of execution or attachment" for any assets. This is permission to try, not a transfer of money.

Judge Netburn wrote that she "need not make any decisions about asset ownership, agency or instrumentality status, TRIA's requirements, or priority to the assets," and that all of them are "reserved for later proceedings." In plain terms, four things are still open:

• Who owns the Tether. Not decided.
• Whether these are the assets of an agency or instrumentality. Not decided.
• Whether the terrorism insurance statute applies to these assets. Not decided.
• Who stands first in line to collect. Not decided.

Another group of victims already holds writs on the same money

A separate group of terrorism victims, the Benson plaintiffs, already holds writs of attachment on this same Tether and asserts priority over any claim the 9/11 plaintiffs may ultimately make. The court took no position on that dispute.

Being allowed to pursue an asset is not the same as being first to it. Priority gets decided in a later proceeding, and the July 9 order deliberately left it open.

The separate bitcoin track, and why it may pause

The 127,271 bitcoin case is a different track that often gets folded into the same headline. LuBian is the claimant that says those coins belong to it. On July 9 it asked the court to pause two suits, Fritz and Relvas, until the forfeiture case is finished (United States v. Approximately 127,271 bitcoin, No. 1:25-cv-05745 (E.D.N.Y.), ECF 473). Those suits, Fritz v. Iran and China Investment Development Group, No. 1:25-cv-07093, and Relvas, No. 1:26-cv-00642, are the ones Iran judgment creditors filed to attach the same coins.

LuBian's argument runs like this. Until the forfeiture case decides whether the coins can be forfeited at all, and what LuBian's own interest in them is, there is nothing there to attach, so the creditor suits should sit still. On July 14 Judge Rachel Kovner directed the Fritz, Havlish, and Relvas claimants and the government to respond by July 16.

An order setting a briefing schedule is not a ruling. The stay has not been decided, and no date is set for it.

How this connects to the USVSST Fund, and how it does not

Forfeited money has funded part of the Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund, so it is fair to ask whether this $344 million eventually lands there. But the July 9 order is a different mechanism. These plaintiffs are pursuing assets directly on their own judgments, not through the Fund's pro rata distributions.

The two tracks can coexist. Under 34 U.S.C. 20144(d)(5)(B), receiving money from the Fund does not extinguish your judgment. You keep your creditor rights in the unpaid and outstanding amounts.

What any of this means for one family's claim depends on that family's judgment and its posture in these cases. That is a question for your attorney, not for a blog post.

What to watch next

Turnover motions on the Tether. That is the proceeding where ownership and priority get decided, and it is the one worth watching. No date is set.

The court's ruling on LuBian's stay request in the bitcoin cases. Responses were due July 16. No decision date is set.

In the background, the judgment paperwork kept moving. On July 10, Judge George B. Daniels entered partial final judgments under Rule 54(b) for compensatory damages for the plaintiffs listed in Exhibits A through D of his order (ECF 12177). That same order denied, without prejudice, the additional damages those plaintiffs could still seek from Iran, punitive damages among them.

Separately, the clerk filed certificates of mailing for default-judgment notices with certified Farsi translations: on July 13 in the Ashton matter, for a package that went out July 10, and on July 15 in the Burnett and Arias matters. Giving notice is the step that starts the clock a 1610(c) finding later depends on.

None of that pays anyone. It is the scaffolding that has to be standing before any of the rest can happen.