Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev is accused of laundering $1.2 billion in illicit funds through the platform, according to an indictment obtained by DL News in the Netherlands.
The indictment alleges that Pertsev is involved in money laundering on Tornado Cash and cites 36 transactions on the platform that it claims are illegal. One such transaction was 175 ETH, reportedly derived from the Ronin Bridge hack, and the blockchain popularized by the Web3 game Axie Infinity lost 173,600 ETH, among other assets, to exploits worth a total of $590 million in March 2022.
Pertsev is awaiting trial in the Netherlands on March 26 on charges related to money laundering and other financial crimes.
Pertsev was first arrested in August 2022. At the time, Dutch authorities said at least $1 billion in criminally derived cryptocurrency was channeled through Tornado Cash, and members of Tornado Cash’s team profited from the transactions, The Block previously reported. Tornado Cash is a cryptocurrency mixer that facilitates private on-chain transactions by processing numerous transactions, pooling funds, and then distributing the money to hide its origin.
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About the author
MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020, joining just before Bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for publications covering all cryptocurrency-related news, preferring NFTs, metaverse, web3 games, fundraising, crime, hacking, and cryptocurrency ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. X You can follow MK at @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.