Tron, Tether and Chainalysis Launch Digital Crime Task Force to Target Illicit USDT

By Coinvote

Published November 13, 2026 - 11:22 UTC | 5 mins read

Tron, Tether and Chainalysis Launch Digital Crime Task Force to Target Illicit USDT

Tron, Tether and Chainalysis have launched the Digital Crime Task Force to trace illicit USDT on Tron and help law enforcement freeze funds sooner. It replaces the T3 unit built with TRM Labs, which Bloomberg reported had been disbanded in late August.

A new task force targets illicit USDT on Tron

Tron, Tether and the blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis have launched the Digital Crime Task Force. It is a joint effort aimed at criminal use of the USDT stablecoin on the Tron network. Decrypt and Cointelegraph both describe the goal as flagging suspicious transfers for law enforcement quickly enough to freeze the funds. The Block summarized the launch as an alliance against AI-powered crypto crime.

According to Decrypt, the group says it will work proactively. It will not wait for a victim complaint or an investigator's alert. Instead it plans to map criminal networks and organize asset freezes, using Chainalysis intelligence and AI-based investigative tools. Decrypt adds that police can also send the task force tips and requests to freeze funds.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said that "waiting for a victim to report a crime is no longer good enough," according to both Decrypt and Cointelegraph. Decrypt reported that Tron founder Justin Sun framed the effort as protection for the people who rely on USDT.

The T3 unit that came before it

The new group follows an earlier effort. Tron and Tether formed the T3 Financial Crime Unit in 2024 with TRM Labs, and Decrypt reports that Binance later joined. Decrypt says the unit froze more than $450 million in tainted assets.

Bloomberg reported that T3 was disbanded in late August. Cointelegraph, citing Bloomberg, dates that report to Nov. 4 and says an unnamed source blamed slow responses and poor coordination. Decrypt similarly cites people familiar with the matter and names slow response times and weak coordination among members.

Swapping TRM Labs for Chainalysis carries extra weight because the two firms compete. Decrypt notes that Chainalysis has taken legal action against the US government because an ICE contract went to TRM without a competitive bidding process. Cointelegraph said it contacted Tether, Tron and TRM Labs for comment and had received no responses by publication time.

Speed matters in this kind of work because a stablecoin issuer can generally block tokens held at specific addresses. Once criminals move or swap the funds, that option shrinks.

The numbers behind the announcement

The outlets cite a mix of Tether's own totals and third-party tracing data. Each figure below is attributed as the outlets reported it.

More than $7 billion: Tether's cumulative freezes tied to illicit activity, according to Ardoino as quoted by Decrypt and Cointelegraph.
Over 360 law enforcement agencies in 73 countries: the agencies Tether works with, per Decrypt.
More than $94 billion: the USDT circulating on Tron, per Decrypt.
More than $450 million: the tainted assets frozen by T3, per Decrypt.
$1.07 billion: crypto received by 34 casinos in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, from Jan. 1 to Sept. 7, with USDT on Tron making up 99.9%, according to TRM Labs as cited by Cointelegraph.
$687 million: the part of those inflows that went to casinos tied to US-sanctioned networks, per the same TRM Labs report.
$234 million: USDT that hackers swapped for TRX during the Binance hack, according to Crystal Intelligence as cited by Cointelegraph.

Where the outlets' accounts differ

Decrypt and Cointelegraph supply the detail. The Block's entry supports only the basics: the three companies started a shared project named the Digital Crime Task Force, aimed at illegal activity in crypto. Nothing in it can be used to add or confirm further specifics.

The two fuller reports disagree on a few points. Decrypt says the announcement came on Wednesday, while Cointelegraph says Thursday. Decrypt calls the Binance hack a $6.4 billion event, and Cointelegraph gives $6.3 billion and dates the attack to Oct. 29.

The timeline also differs. Decrypt says T3's collapse became public just days before the Binance hack. Cointelegraph, however, places Bloomberg's report on Nov. 4, after the Oct. 29 attack. Readers who need the sequence should check Bloomberg's original article.

Why Tron's USDT is the focus

Cointelegraph links the new task force to several large cases involving USDT on Tron. For the heavy use of USDT on Tron around Sihanoukville, TRM Labs pointed to cheap transactions and ample liquidity. According to Elliptic, funds taken in the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025 were swapped into USDT on Tron and then cashed out via suspected Chinese over-the-counter trading services.

In the Binance case, Crystal Intelligence said the hackers exchanged roughly $234 million of USDT for TRX, after which Tether froze the USDT left in two wallets tied to the theft. The FBI attributed both the Binance and Bybit hacks to North Korea. In a statement carried by North Korean state media on Nov. 3, Kim Yo Jong rejected the Binance attribution.

Tron's market footprint gives the scale of the network involved. CoinGecko ranks TRX eighth by market value at $29.66 billion, and DefiLlama counts $4.80 billion of DeFi TVL on the chain. The task force's stated focus, though, is USDT transfers.

What to watch next

Several questions remain open. Neither Decrypt nor Cointelegraph says whether Binance or other exchanges that worked with T3 will join the new group. The reports also give no response from TRM Labs on the end of T3 or the switch of partners.

The task force's results will be the test. It has promised proactive tracing, so the measures to follow are freeze totals, response times and the volume of police requests handled. T3's reported problems were slow responses and poor coordination, and the new structure will be judged on those points.

Decrypt also reports that the group framed its work around autonomous AI agents transacting onchain, which it warned would create new openings for criminals. Exchanges and project teams that handle USDT on Tron can check how law enforcement freeze requests and tips are submitted under the new arrangement.

Market snapshot

Asset	Price	24h	7d	Market cap
TRON (TRX)	$0.31204	-1.4%	-1.9%	$29.66 billion

CoinGecko data as of 2026-11-13 (UTC); DeFi TVL from DefiLlama: Tron $4.80 billion.

FAQ

What is the Digital Crime Task Force?

It is a joint effort by Tron, Tether and Chainalysis to identify and disrupt illicit activity involving USDT on Tron. According to Decrypt, it will trace criminal networks, coordinate asset freezes and accept tips and freeze requests from police.

What happened to the T3 Financial Crime Unit?

T3 was formed in 2024 by Tron and Tether with TRM Labs, and Binance later joined, according to Decrypt. Bloomberg reported that it disbanded in late August, with a source citing slow responses and poor coordination.

How much has Tether frozen so far?

Ardoino put Tether's cumulative freezes at more than $7 billion. Decrypt adds that Tether works with over 360 law enforcement agencies across 73 countries, and that T3 froze more than $450 million in tainted assets.