On Jan. 2, the T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU), a collaboration between Tether, Tron, and TRM Labs, announced that it had passed “a significant milestone in its fight against cryptocurrency-related financial crime.”
The unit, launched in August 2024, has worked closely with global law enforcement agencies to “successfully intervene in cases involving money laundering, investment fraud, blackmail operations, terrorism financing, and other serious financial crimes,” it stated.
Freezing Criminal Assets
“By working closely with authorities across jurisdictions, Tether has been instrumental in freezing criminal assets and ensuring that bad actors do not exploit stablecoins like USDT,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether.
“Criminals now have 100 million reasons to think twice before using TRON,” said Justin Sun, founder of the Tron network , who added:
“T3 FCU’s rapid success in freezing criminal assets sends an unmistakable message: if you’re using USDT on TRON for crime, you will be caught.”
The T3 Financial Crime Unit has already analyzed millions of transactions across five continents, monitoring over 3 billion in USDT volume, according to the announcement.
Chris Janczewski, head of global investigations at TRM Labs, said surpassing 100 million USDT in frozen assets is just the beginning.
“In 2025 and beyond, as more and more lawful users enter the growing crypto ecosystem, it is more important than ever to keep it safe. T3 is dedicated to that mission.”
Are Tether’s EU Woes About to Deepen?
Tether’s market capitalization has started to shrink for the first time since late 2022, having fallen by 3 billion USDT from its peak of around $140 billion in mid-December.
The decline in supply may be due to deepening concerns in Europe as its restrictive Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations were activated, raising uncertainty about USDT’s status on exchanges in the bloc.
The implementation of MiCA in Europe on Dec. 30 has created an uncertain future for stablecoin issuers such as Tether since the regulations do not clarify whether USDT is compliant.
However, Ardoino dismissed the concerns as FUD earlier this week as the firm added $700 million worth of Bitcoin to its treasury. “Don’t believe the FUD,” he said before adding, “Competitors are just desperate to make you believe things that don’t exist.”
