Crypto consortium T3 FCU helps Spanish authorities freeze $26.4M linked to crime syndicate

What to know

• The T3 Financial Crime Unit announced it has made its largest bust yet, seizing $26.4 million from a European transnational gang.

• T3 has frozen $126 million so far.

Spanish authorities are crediting the T3 Financial Crime Unit, a consortium made up of Tron, Tether, and TRM Labs, for helping take down a multinational European financial crime syndicate.

According to Spain's Guardia Civil, the crime syndicate operated across multiple European jurisdictions, providing cash-to-crypto laundering services for criminal enterprises.

T3 said it seized $26.4 million, calling it the most significant coordinated freeze it has been involved with since its launch last year. So far, the group says it has frozen $126 million.

"Public-private partnerships are particularly effective in cryptocurrency investigations because they leverage our distinct but complementary strengths," Chris Janczewski, head of investigations at TRM Labs said in an email to CoinDesk.

"Law enforcement brings their traditional expertise to the investigation while the private sector is able to contribute technical capabilities which are necessary to a crypto investigation," he continued.

Spanish authorities identified the organization through police surveillance, and were assisted by several investigative measures and Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) Know Your Customer (KYC) records, the release from T3 said.

"We have a team that can speak both 'crypto' and 'cop,’ including former law enforcement officials with extensive experience from several agencies," added Janczewski. "That has allowed us to strengthen on-the-ground police work by agencies like Guardia Civil so that they can connect on-chain activity with the tangible word."

In a release, Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, added that Tether has collaborated with more than 220 law enforcement agencies across more than 51 jurisdictions to freeze more than 2,400 addresses, amounting to nearly 2.2 billion USDT.

A release from Europol noted that the organized crime syndicate was "composed of mostly Ukrainian but also Armenian, Azerbaijani, or Kazakh nationals."