The T3 Financial Crimes Unit, a collaboration between the Tron blockchain, stablecoin issuer Tether, and blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs, said it has frozen a total of 100 million of Tether’s USDT used by illicit actors since the unit was blocked. Formed in September.
The project analyzed millions of transactions spanning five continents, monitoring a total volume of more than US$3 billion, the largest stablecoin, T3 said in a statement.
T3 includes TRM Labs that uses blockchain intelligence and monitoring tools to help Tron and Tether identify and freeze USDT associated with illicit activities. There is approximately $60 billion in USDT It was issued on the Tron blockchain, the largest issuance behind Ethereum, which has just over $75 billion.
Money laundering as a service — where bad actors hire entities on the dark web to clean up illicit funds — is the biggest source of frozen funds, said Chris Janczewski, head of global investigations at TRM Labs. Investment fraud, illegal drugs, terrorist financing, extortion, hacking, exploitation and even violent crimes were also targets, he said in an interview with CoinDesk.
“Blockchain technology is a bad place for money laundering because it is so transparent,” Janczewski said. “We can confirm victim reports on a public blockchain and even identify other victims, a level of insight not possible with traditional finance.”
Up to 3 million of the frozen USDT has ties to North Korea, where it is active Trying to infiltrate crypto projects T3 said in order to raise funds for the country’s driving system. US Department of Treasury Announced in December They shut down North Korea’s money laundering network.
“Ultimately, we hope that through our efforts, not only will victims be able to recover their money, but bad actors will think twice before engaging in illicit activity on the blockchain like Tron,” Janczewski said.
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