T3 Financial Crime Unit Freezes $100 Million in Illicit Tether Funds
The T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU), established in September 2022 by Tether, Tron (TRX), and TRM Labs, has frozen $100 million in USDT linked to illegal activities. The unit analyzed $3 billion in Tether USDT volume across five continents, resulting in this action.
Chris Janczewski, head of global investigations at TRM Labs, stated that "money laundering as a service," which involves hiring darknet users to launder funds, was the primary source of the frozen assets. The T3 FCU also targeted investment scams, drug operations, terrorism-related financial crimes, and hacks.
“Blockchain is a bad place to do money laundering because it’s so transparent. We can confirm victim reports on a public blockchain and even identify other victims, a level of insight that just isn’t possible with traditional finance,” Janczewski noted.
Justin Sun, founder of Tron, indicated that criminals have strong reasons to avoid TRX-based products. The T3 FCU also froze up to $3 million linked to North Korea-sponsored hackers.
“Ultimately, we hope that through our efforts, not only will victims recover their funds, but bad actors will think twice before engaging in illicit activity on blockchains like Tron,” Janczewski remarked.
Market Impact on the Tron Ecosystem
The Tron network faces scrutiny from U.S. government agencies under the Biden administration for allegedly facilitating criminal activities. In 2023, the SEC charged Sun and his businesses for offering unregistered crypto asset securities and manipulating the market through wash trading of TRX.
Coinbase Global Inc. noted in a court filing that it delisted Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) due to its connection with Sun.
In response, Sun and the Tron DAO facilitated the freezing of over $100 million USDT from criminal activities. Sun also invested $30 million in World Liberty Financial (WLFI), backed by President-elect Donald Trump.
These developments position the Tron network for potential re-entry into the U.S. market following Trump's inauguration. The new administration may focus on fostering growth in the crypto asset industry.
TRX holders could benefit from increased mainstream adoption. Currently, TRX has a fully diluted valuation of approximately $23 billion and a 24-hour average trading volume of about $823 million, entering price discovery as altseason approaches.