Tron, Tether and Chainalysis set up a task force to freeze USDT linked to crime faster

Tron, Tether and the blockchain analysis company Chainalysis have set up a joint unit, the Digital Crime Task Force, to find criminal activity involving the USDT stablecoin on the Tron blockchain and help police freeze funds before they are moved, The Block and Decrypt reported on Thursday, November 12, 2026, citing a statement from the three. It follows a similar unit that Tron and Tether formed in 2024 with a Chainalysis rival, TRM Labs, and that has since been disbanded, according to the outlets.

What the task force will do

The unit will identify illicit activity involving USDT on Tron and bring it to law enforcement, using Chainalysis's data and investigative tools, the statement said, according to the reports. It will also take tips and freeze requests from police, Decrypt reported. A stablecoin issuer such as Tether can freeze tokens at a given address, which stops them from being moved.

"Criminals are using AI to move faster than ever, and waiting for a victim to report a crime is no longer good enough," Ardoino said in the statement, as quoted by both outlets. He said Tether has worked with more than 360 law enforcement agencies in 73 countries.

The task force named investment and romance scams, hacks, terrorist financing and North Korean cyberattacks among its targets, according to The Block.

The earlier unit

Tron, Tether and TRM Labs formed the T3 Financial Crime Unit in September 2024. That group said in May 2026 that it had frozen more than $450 million of assets, according to Decrypt. Bloomberg reported earlier in November, citing unnamed sources, that it was disbanded after slow response times and a lack of coordination among its members, The Block and Decrypt said. Decrypt and Cointelegraph said the Bloomberg report put the disbanding in late August. We did not read the Bloomberg report. Tether, Tron and TRM Labs did not respond to Cointelegraph's requests for comment before it published, the outlet said.

The three companies' statement, as the outlets describe it, does not explain why the new unit uses a different analysis company.

Why it matters

USDT on Tron is widely used to move dollars in crypto: more than $94 billion of the token circulates on the network, according to Decrypt. A January 2024 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime described USDT on Tron as a preferred choice for money launderers and fraudsters in East and Southeast Asia, DL News reported at the time. Tether and Tron disputed that assessment. How fast tokens can be frozen decides how much of a theft can be stopped. After the Binance hack in October, Tether and Circle froze more than $2.5 billion of stablecoins tied to the stolen funds.

What it could mean for traders

For users, the practical point is that USDT can be frozen by its issuer, and the issuer is building a faster process for doing so with police. In our assessment, that is good news for victims of theft and a reminder that a stablecoin balance depends on the issuer's decisions in a way that Bitcoin held in a personal wallet does not. The figures in the announcement are the companies' own and have not been checked independently.