T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU) has intercepted and frozen $9,000,000 in fraudulent digital assets linked to the recent Bybit hack, Tether announced in a statement Wednesday, March 26, 2025.
T3 FCU was founded in September 2024 through the collaborative efforts of Tether, TRON, and TRM Labs with the aim of tracking illicit digital assets laundered by bad actors and making the blockchain sector safer for everyone.
The Bybit crypto exchange was hacked on February 21, 2025, resulting in the theft of approximately $1.4 billion in crypto assets—the largest cryptocurrency theft in history.
Following the hack, Bybit’s founder and CEO, Ben Zhou, has been working with relevant authorities, including other exchanges and individuals, to help the Dubai-based platform track and recover the stolen funds.
Announcing the recovery, TRON founder Justin Sun, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, and TRM Labs’ Global Head of Policy Ari Redbord unanimously stated that T3 FCU is a game-changer in how the industry responds to illicit activities, ensuring that bad actors cannot operate with impunity.
They emphasized that T3 FCU is closely monitoring criminal activities and implementing measures to identify and apprehend perpetrators anytime, anywhere to keep the blockchain ecosystem secure and ensure stablecoin technology remains transformative and resistant to exploitation.
One of T3 FCU’s recent successes in combating illicit crypto activity was its collaboration with Spain’s Guardia Civil, which led to the freezing of $26.4 million linked to a money laundering operation spanning several European countries.
Since its launch in late 2024, T3 FCU has disclosed that it has frozen over $150 million in criminal assets across five continents.
The unit also pledged to continue working with speed and precision, using real-time intelligence to disrupt financial crimes at the pace of the internet. T3 FCU positions itself as the global leader in cryptocurrency-related crime prevention.
Reacting to the news, the elated Bybit CEO Ben Zhou on his X handle said, “T3FCU has been tremendously helpful when it comes to tracking and freezing the stolen fund, thanks so much.”