Spanish authorities credit T3 Financial Crime Unit, a consortium consisting of Tron, Tether and TRM laboratories, to help take down a multinational European criminal syndicate.

According to Spain’s Guardia Civil, the crime syndicate operated across several European jurisdictions and provided cash to crypto money laundering services for criminal companies.

T3 said it seized $ 26.4 million and called it the most significant coordinated freezing it has been involved in since the launch last year. So far, the group says it has frozen $ 126 million.

“Public-private partnerships are particularly effective in cryptocurrency surveys because they exploit our different but complementary forces,” said Chris Janczewski, head of investigation at TRM Labs in an email to Coindesk.

“Law enforcement brings their traditional expertise to the investigation, while the private sector is able to contribute technical capabilities needed for a crypto study,” he continued.

Spanish authorities identified the organization through police surveillance and were helped by several investigative measures and virtual asset service provider (VASP) Know Your Customer (KYC) items, says the release from T3.

“We have a team that can speak both ‘Crypto’ and ‘Cop’, including former law enforcement authorities with long experience from multiple agencies,” Janczewski added. “It has enabled us to strengthen police work on Earth as agencies like Guardia Civil, so they can connect activity on the chain with the specific word.”

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

A release from Europol noted that the organized criminal syndicate was “composed of mostly Ukrainian, but also Armenian, Azerbaijan or Kazakh citizens.”