Key Takeaways
- Dutch prosecutors seek a 64-month jail term for Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev on money laundering charges;
- Pertsev's arrest followed the US blacklisting of Tornado Cash;
- The judge's final verdict is expected on May 14.
Dutch prosecutors have recommended a 64-month prison term for Alexey Pertsev, developer of crypto mixer Tornado Cash.
Pertstev is accused of concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating the laundering of $1.2 billion in crypto through Tornado Cash between July 2019 and August 2022.
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The two-day trial was held at the 's-Hertogenbosch court in the Netherlands.
In August 2022, the US Treasury Department blacklisted Tornado Cash, claiming that the mixer had been involved in multiple money laundering schemes, including assisting North Korean hackers called the Lazarus Group in laundering over $600 million from Axie Infinity Ronin Network.
Pertstev was arrested shortly after by the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), responsible for investigating financial crimes in the Netherlands. The FIOD stated:
Investigations showed that at least one billion dollars worth of cryptocurrencies of criminal origin passed through the mixer. It is suspected that persons behind this organization have made large-scale profits from these transactions.
The judge's final verdict on the case is expected on May 14.
Investigations against the co-founders of Tornado Cash, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, are also ongoing. Storm's trial is set for September, whereas Semenov remains at large.
The broader implications of this trial emphasize the necessity of a balanced approach to promoting innovation while ensuring regulatory mechanisms to prevent such financial crimes.
