The T3 Financial Crime Unit froze over $450M in illicit crypto assets tied to scams and criminal activity.
Crypto News
The T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU) has frozen more than $450 million in assets tied to suspected criminal activity since its 2024 launch. The unit is a joint initiative backed by Tether, Tron, and blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs. It has worked with law enforcement agencies across 23 jurisdictions, including the US, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and Bulgaria.
T3 FCU focuses on Tether (USDT) activity on the Tron blockchain and has executed asset freezes within 24 hours of requests from authorities during multiple account takeover incidents and violent crime emergencies. The unit reported a 43.9% increase in intercepted illicit proceeds in 2025 compared with the prior year.
T3 FCU Backed Brazilian Federal Police Operation
The unit has supported investigations covering exchange hacks, North Korea-linked operations, terrorist financing, and wrench attacks such as home invasions, kidnappings, and extortion. It also assisted Operation Lusocoin, a Brazilian Federal Police investigation that froze more than 3 billion reals ($598.9 million) in assets, including 4.3 million USDT tied to a criminal network.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) designated T3 FCU an "invaluable resource for law enforcement agencies worldwide" earlier in 2026, citing its public-private partnership model in FATF reporting. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the $450 million milestone is "just the beginning of what T3 is capable of."
TRM Labs data shows total illicit crypto volume reached a record $158 billion in 2025, a rise of nearly 145% from the prior period. Illicit actors' share of available crypto liquidity fell slightly from 2.9% in 2024 to 2.7% in 2025. The overall volume increase has added pressure on stablecoin issuers and blockchain networks to strengthen compliance efforts.
Separate on-chain data from security firm BlockSec showed more than $500 million in USDT had been frozen over a recent 30-day period. How those figures intersect with T3 FCU's reported totals has not been clarified by Tether. Cointelegraph asked Tether how the $450 million relates to its broader blacklisting activity across chains, but the company had not responded by publication time.
Tron told Cointelegraph it operates as an "agnostic technology provider" that cannot directly monitor every user or block every transaction. It said responsibility for identifying and stopping illicit activity rests with partners including Tether, TRM Labs, and law enforcement.
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