The developer of Tornado Cash has been sentenced to 64 months in prison.

One of the developers of the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash has been found guilty and sentenced to 64 months in prison. Alexey Pertsev, who is 29 years old, became one of the key developers of this service and was convicted for assisting in the laundering of more than2 billion dollarsIn cryptocurrency, mixers play an important role for cybercriminals who use them to illegally process funds stolen from victims. In August 2022, this individual was arrested by FIOD officials in Amsterdam, accused of concealing financial crimes and facilitating money laundering using Tornado Cash. The goal of FIOD is to ensure financial security in the Netherlands and investigate the impact of cryptocurrency activity. The Financial Crime Team (FACT) suggests that Tornado Cash was used to mask large financial flows related to criminal activities.

According to the indictment published in August 2023, the Tornado Cash service allowed criminals to anonymously process large sums of money obtained through illegal means. As reported by OFAC, since its inception...in 2019Tornado Cash was used for laundering over7 billion dollarsvirtual currencies. The Lazarus APT group laundered over455 million dollarsthat were stolen during one of the largest virtual currency thefts to date. Additionally, Tornado Cash was also used for laundering more96 million dollars, obtained from unreliable cybercriminals as a result of the theft on Harmony Bridge on June 24, 2022, as well as at least7.8 million dollarsin the recent Nomad crypto theft.

In August 2022, the U.S.

According to the research, it has been established that1.2 billion US dollarswere laundered in this way through the so-called Ethers (cryptocurrency). These Ethers come from36 different theftsThe judicial authorities noted that36— this is the minimum number, and without applying these parameters, it becomes clear that a certain amount was laundered through criminal Ethers.2.2 billion dollarsMoreover, the court does not rule out that the cryptocurrency could have been laundered as a result of other crimes. In accordance with the prosecutor's request, the court sentenced the defendant to5 years and 4 monthsprison sentence. The court also decided not to return the confiscated Porsche and cryptocurrency worth approximately1.9 million euros.