TRM Labs

Payment service providers (PSPs) act as the bridge between the #crypto and fiat ecosystems, enabling value transfers at the speed of the internet. 🏎️💨 However, their unique position at this intersection also exposes them to significant risks. Join Angela Ang (Senior Policy Advisor, APAC at TRM Labs), Aaron Chua (Regional Head of Compliance at StraitsX) and Rodrigo Peiteado (Financial Crime Intelligence Lead at BVNK) for an in-depth discussion on managing risk at scale in the world of crypto payments, October 29 or 30. They’ll be covering: ✅ The diversity and complexity of risks faced by PSPs ✅ Strategies for balancing risk with opportunity ✅ How #blockchainintelligence can be used to detect financial crime and increase efficiency Save your spot now ➡ https://hubs.la/Q02S_3DF0

We are hiring! Join our mission and build a safer financial system at TRM!

We are hiring! Join our mission and build a safer financial system at TRM!

🚨 FBI Cleveland and US Attorney’s Office for Northern District of Ohio Freeze and Seize Illicit Crypto Proceeds Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the civil forfeiture of 200,000 in USDT that was the proceeds of a fraud scheme involving crypto assets stolen from a victim, identified as "L.D.," located in Ohio. TRM Labs is proud to support FBI in this and other cases to identify and disrupt the illicit use of cryptocurrency. The DOJ team, led by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Cleveland and the USAO for the Northern District of Ohio, was able to trace stolen BTC to an exchange, work with the exchange to identify a swap of those funds to USDT and ETH, trace those proceeds to two TRON addresses, request Tether freeze those funds, then get Tether to remit newly minted USDT to return the USDT to the victim. Additionally, the DOJ team used a novel technique for delivering “notice” to the foreign-based controllers of the frozen TRON addresses. The FBI sent a transaction to the address which included a note, with a link to the forfeiture, explaining that the funds had been forfeited by the US Government. L.D. had intended to engage with the legitimate platform “ThorSwap.” The platform had advertised an “earn” feature, encouraging users to lend bitcoin to liquidity pools in exchange for interest payments. After following instructions online, L.D. transferred 1 BTC (approximately $50,000) from his hardware wallet to what he believed was a ThorSwap-associated address. However, the BTC was transferred to a separate address with no connection to ThorSwap. Two days later, an additional 6.55813405 BTC (around $340,000) was taken from L.D.'s wallet in an unauthorized transaction. Unlike the initial transfer, this significant transfer was not initiated or authorized by L.D., suggesting that the fraudsters had gained access to his wallet or private key information. This entire balance was then transferred to an unhosted address, labeled “ADDRESS-I,” the first known recipient address used in the fraud. The stolen BTC from ADDRESS-I was subsequently transferred in multiple transactions to addresses controlled by MEXC Global, a cryptocurrency exchange. MEXC Global accounts associated with email addresses based in Nigeria were then used to swap the BTC for USDT and ETH. These accounts were created just before or after the fraudulent transactions and accessed via IP addresses traced to Lagos, Nigeria. The fraudsters’ tactics included splitting the BTC into smaller transactions, making it appear like legitimate activity. The USDT was then transferred in two primary batches: a 98,000 USDT transaction to an address designated as ADDRESS-7 and a 100,000 USDT transaction to ADDRESS-8. By March 2024, both addresses were frozen by Tether upon law enforcement's request. Tether, according to the complaint, subsequently “burned” the USDT tokens in these addresses and reissued the equivalent amounts to a U.S. law enforcement-controlled wallet.

🇪🇸 The TRM team was in Spain this week for Merge Madrid | Oct. 8-10th! Throughout the conference, we led a number of conversations on key topics: 🔸 Jacob C. explained the challenges and opportunities presented by MiCA alongside Cristina Carrascosa Cobos,LLM, Francisco Maroto, and Esther Molina 🔸 Isaac M. highlighted the role of banks in the digital asset revolution, with key insights from Victor Busson, Adrian White, Gabriel Ayala, and Juan Jiménez Zaballos 🔸 Patrick S. discussed how Chainabuse empowers exchanges to protect users, in conversation with Coty de Monteverde 🔸 Jacob C. joined up with Sandra Adrián [ Cripto Tax ] and Pere Monguió Montells to lead a workshop on how to detect and monitor fraud using Chainabuse We also hosted a reception with the 🇺🇸 US Embassy, Madrid, where attendees had the opportunity to network, discuss the value of public-private partnerships, and learn how #blockchainintelligence helps combat #crypto crime. Thanks to everyone who attended!

Presidential politics in the US, crypto licenses in Hong Kong, EBA agendas in the EU — oh my! As autumn kicks off with a busy start throughout the cryptoverse, our team of policy experts — Ari Redbord, Isabella Chase, and Angela Ang — break it all down for us. Here’s what’s on deck for this edition of ✨The Weekly Roundup✨: 🗳️ The crypto election: Crypto, disinformation, and presidential politics 🇭🇰 Hong Kong expects to issue up to 11 more crypto licenses by year end 🇸🇬 Singapore consults on broader AML/CFT regulation for crypto businesses 🇪🇺 What’s on the EBA’s 2025 agenda? 🏦 The next round of MiCA implementation challenges 📉 FTX customers to get back 118% of 2022 account values in bankruptcy plan Click below to dig in (and don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already!) 👇

Monero has risen as a leading privacy coin, especially for those looking to obfuscate the provenance of their funds. 👀 In our latest blog post, we take a closer look at a recently published paper—a thorough analysis of the effectiveness of various heuristics to trace #Monero, one of the most privacy-centric cryptocurrencies—from TRM Labs researchers. We explore several of the key mechanisms Monero uses to build in privacy features, highlight some of the heuristics that were evaluated in the paper, and assess the effectiveness of those heuristics to exploit vulnerabilities. ➡️ Read the post and get the paper: https://hubs.la/Q02SP6q50

Pig butchering is a form of investment fraud that involves scammers forming close—often romantic—relationships with victims, convincing them to make increasingly large deposits into fraudulent accounts, and eventually fleeing with the stolen funds. The prevalence of pig butchering has grown in recent years. And the financial and emotional toll these scams take on victims can be grave. “Pig butchering victims are really damaged in a way that we haven’t seen before,” explained Erin West, Deputy District Attorney in Santa Clara, CA. “We’ve never seen what happens when you lead a human to believe that they are in the relationship of their life . . . and then one day, that person comes to find out that it was all a lie.” 📽️ Check out this video to learn more about the scourge of #pigbutchering and see what the REACT Task Force (co-founded by West) is doing to investigate, arrest, and prosecute pig butchering scammers and other criminal offenders. ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

Utila—the leading institutional MPC wallet platform—is integrated with TRM 🎉 Now, Utila customers get access to robust real-time risk insights from TRM, directly in their Utila wallet environment. Get more details here ➡️ https://hubs.la/Q02SLGtF0

🚀 Anchorage Digital Bank was built from day one with #compliance as critical infrastructure, and continues to set a precedent for how #digitalasset companies can operate within existing regulatory frameworks. Rachel Anderika, Anchorage’s Head of Global Operations, joins Ari Redbord on this episode of #TRMTalks. They discuss building with compliance, global expansion, and what the future holds for the US’s first crypto bank. 🎲 There might also be a little trash talk—we hear that Rachel loves a good game of backgammon! Listen to the full episode now: https://lnkd.in/eqvVjZ9R