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The Courts IT

Tornado Cash Developer Found Guilty of Laundering $1.2 Billion of Crypto (wired.com) 95

A panel of judges in the Netherlands has found Alexey Pertsev, one of the developers behind crypto anonymizing tool Tornado Cash, guilty of money laundering. Wired: Over the course of two days in March, the Russian national was tried on the allegation that the tool he developed had allowed criminals -- among them hackers with ties to North Korea -- to freely launder $1.2 billion in stolen cryptocurrency. "The management of Tornado Cash welcomed the bank robbers with open arms," the prosecutors wrote in a March court filing.

Dutch judges sentenced Pertsev to five years and four months in prison on Tuesday, which was the term requested by prosecutors in the case. "With Tornado Cash, the defendant created a shortcut for financing crimes and terrorism," said the court in a statement, translated from Dutch. "He chose to look away from the abuse and did not take any responsibility." The purpose of tools like Tornado Cash, known as crypto mixers or tumblers, is to mask the origin and destination of users' coins. Funds belonging to many parties are pooled, jumbled up, and spat out into brand-new wallets, by which time it is no longer clear whose crypto is whose. These services are promoted as a way to improve the level of privacy available to crypto users, but have been readily co-opted for the purpose of money laundering.

On August 8, 2022, Tornado Cash was sanctioned in the United States, making it illegal for US citizens to use the service. Any product that "indiscriminately facilitates anonymous transactions," wrote the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, represents a "threat to US national security." Two days later, Pertsev was arrested in the Netherlands, where he resided. Money laundering activity, the Dutch prosecutors claim, accounted for more than 30 percent of the funds that passed through Tornado Cash between 2019 and 2022. [...] Pertsev built his defense on the argument that Tornado Cash, which remains in operation, is under nobody's control -- including his own -- as a piece of software that runs on the Ethereum blockchain, a distributed network of computers.
Further reading: Coinbase Employees and Ethereum Backers Sue US Treasury Over Tornado Cash Sanctions (September 2022).

Tornado Cash Developer Found Guilty of Laundering $1.2 Billion of Crypto

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Yep, this is what you get for being an unapproved money launderer. Money laundering is reserved for State Actors and governments.

  • $1.2 billion in transactions, and likely got a percentage or kickbacks? Seems like a no brainer way to make millions for a small price.
  • He's doing it wrong (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stolidobserver ( 4112531 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2024 @11:23AM (#64471223)

    If you want to launder money, you open a foundation. Then set up hundreds of shell corporations and bank accounts and shuffle through all of that before finally depositing to the foundation. Ask your politician's wife for details.

    • I thought if you want to launder money, you find a guy named Danny and "invest" in his laser tag business.
      • I thought if you want to launder money, you find a guy named Danny and "invest" in his laser tag business.

        No, you need to find a guy named Donny and "invest" in his golf course(s).
  • Ford invented the F150, profits from selling F150 vehicles, and does nothing to prevent their criminal use in heists of ATMs. Therefore, Ford is responsible for the criminal use of the F150s and the cost to the ATM operators of the behavior of criminals who use the F150 for this purpose.
    • Sure. You pay taxes. Your government does evil things with some of that money. You don't do anything to stop your government from doing those evil things. Therefore you are guilty of those evil things your government does.

    • youve got to convince lawmakers though and thats the real hurdle

    • I guess if the sole purpose of the F150 was to steal ATMs, a case could be made for your point...

      Is there a legitimate purpose to a crypto currency mixer service?

      • Do you publish your full bank history online for others to see? If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide. Please show me where it's available for review.
        • Nah, but my bank will report suspicious activity to the government and that doesn't bother me in the slightest.
        • So the problem is, a currency was created to remove governmental control, but was done such a dumb way that it made all transactions public, so a mixer that hides that and helps facilitate money laundering is needed?

          OH, let me try our favorite hobby again. Its like if Ford made F150's to steal ATMS because without stealing the ATM's the cameras on them would let everyone know when I was withdrawing money, So I steal ATMS, break them open and withdrawal only my money, then put them back with a note detailin
          • So the problem is, a currency was created to remove governmental control, but was done such a dumb way that it made all transactions public, so a mixer that hides that and helps facilitate money laundering is needed?

            The web was built on HTTP in such a dumb way that made all transmissions public, so a certificate provider that hides those transmissions and helps facilitate [insert random illegal activity that can be hidden through encryption] is needed?

            I hope you realize the battle over export restriction of secure encryption technology was won against the US authoritarians a few decades ago.

        • Do you publish your full bank history online for others to see? If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide. Please show me where it's available for review.

          Not online, but my bank history is available for full review pending court orders and is overseen by a bank that follows the laws of the country, including detecting and reporting of suspicious money laundering activities.

          Oh and my bank doesn't exist for the sole purpose of hiding a financial trail, unlike this service.

          • I hope you don't use cash for anything because, if you do, your daddy government won't be able to surveil your activities.

            Oh and my bank doesn't exist for the sole purpose of hiding a financial trail, unlike this service.

            This is true in the same way that end-to-end encryption exists only to conceal child sex trafficking activities.

    • Well done. I too, love to make up absurd scenarios that demonstrate my complete misunderstanding of law and my desire to commit crimes without punishment.
  • Dunning-Krugerrands used for money laundering? Noooo, unpossible!

  • ```
    Any product that "indiscriminately facilitates anonymous transactions," wrote the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, represents a "threat to US national security."
    ```

    They know they're describing cash - US Dollar notes, right? Or any fungible/privacy-preserving current money.

    Of course they do. The Programmable Surveillable Money (PSM) specter looms darkly.

    No wonder Trump just got $100M in crypto donations. Not everybody wants their entire life in Genocide Joe's database (especially not the M

  • That's rookie numbers. You got to pump it up.

  • That they used crypto for money laundering. I mean, what was it created for?

    Oh, yeah, tax cheating, money laundering, and buying illegal items.

  • Any product that "indiscriminately facilitates anonymous transactions," wrote the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, represents a "threat to US national security."

    So CASH is a threat to national security. Good to know.

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