March 28, 2024

Tornado Cash developer arrested in Amsterdam

Tornado Cash developer arrested in Amsterdam

Dutch law enforcement officers have arrested a developer allegedly associated with the Tornado Cash mixer.

A 29-year-old man was detained in Amsterdam. He is suspected of being involved in money laundering and hiding criminal financial flows through a cryptocurrency mixer.

In June 2022, a division of the Netherlands Financial Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) launched a criminal investigation into Tornado Cash.

The agency believes that the mixer was used to hide large criminal financial flows, including as a result of the theft of cryptocurrencies during hacking and fraud.

“These cutting-edge technologies, such asdecentralized organizations that can facilitate money laundering are receiving additional attention from the FIOD,” law enforcement officials said, not ruling out further arrests.

According to some information, we are talking about the developer Alexey Pertsev. This information has not yet been confirmed.

Recall that on August 8, the US authorities introducedsanctions list mixer website, as well as associated cryptocurrency addresses. At least $7 billion has passed through Tornado Cash since 2019, according to the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Circle subsequently blacklisted Tornado Cash USDC wallet addresses following the sanctions. Infura and Alchemy infrastructure platforms have limited RPC requests to Tornado Cash.

Decentralized derivatives exchange dYdX has suspended the accounts of users who previously interacted with the mixing service.

After entering the US sanctions list, Tornado Cash's assets decreased by 15%.

Experts assessed the consequences of sanctions against the Tornado Cash mixer


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