Tron, Tether and Chainalysis Launch Digital Crime Task Force
Tron, Tether and Chainalysis launched a Digital Crime Task Force using Chainalysis data and AI to flag illicit USDT on Tron and help law enforcement freeze funds faster, months after the T3 Financial Crime Unit with TRM Labs disbanded.
The stablecoin that scam compounds and state hackers have leaned on for years now has a dedicated crime-fighting unit: Tron, Tether and Chainalysis on Thursday announced a Digital Crime Task Force aimed at identifying and disrupting illicit activity involving USDT on the Tron blockchain.
The group will use Chainalysis data and AI tools to flag suspicious activity, then hand law enforcement leads to trace and freeze funds. The stated goal is to shorten the gap between detecting a threat and acting on it, by gathering intelligence and working with agencies to freeze assets before criminals can move them.
"Criminals are using AI to move faster than ever, and waiting for a victim to report a crime is no longer good enough"
Paolo Ardoino, Tether CEO
The task force's priorities include investment and romance scams, hacks and crypto theft, terrorist financing, North Korean cyber operations and cartel money laundering. Chainalysis said AI-enabled scams were 4.5 times more profitable than conventional schemes in 2025, with impersonation scams up more than 1,400% year over year.
Ardoino put Tether's cumulative freezes at more than $7 billion, work that involves more than 360 law enforcement agencies across 73 countries.
Justin Sun framed the effort around legitimate users:
"Millions of people rely on USDT on Tron to support their families, sustain their businesses, and build a more secure future"
Justin Sun
A replacement for T3
The task force follows the dissolution of the T3 Financial Crime Unit, which Tron, Tether and TRM Labs formed in 2024. Bloomberg reported on Nov. 4 that the unit disbanded in late August, citing an unnamed source who said slow responses and poor coordination hampered it.
That history is the obvious test for the new group. Speed is the whole pitch, and it is the very thing the old unit reportedly lacked.
Why Tron USDT keeps drawing scrutiny
The scale of the problem is documented. TRM Labs reported that USDT on Tron accounted for 99.9% of the $1.07 billion received by 34 Sihanoukville casinos between Jan. 1 and Sept. 7, and casinos tied to US-sanctioned networks received $687 million of that. TRM cited low fees and deep liquidity as reasons the token is popular in scam hubs.
Large hacks have followed the same route. In the Oct. 29 Binance hack, which totaled $6.3 billion, hackers swapped about $234 million in USDT for TRX before Tether froze the remaining USDT in two wallets, according to Crystal Intelligence. The FBI attributed the attack to North Korea, and Chainalysis had separately tied the hack to North Korea while flagging new laundering patterns. Elliptic said that after the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025, stolen funds were likewise converted to USDT on Tron and cashed out through suspected Chinese OTC services.
The pattern shows why a freeze is a race. A stablecoin issuer can lock tokens only while they remain in that form, much as a bank can freeze an account but not the cash already carried out the door, and the Binance case showed launderers swapping out of USDT before a freeze could land. A task force that pairs on-chain analytics with law enforcement contacts is built to close that window; how quickly it actually does so is the measure that will matter.
