Tornado Cash Crypto Mixer Co-Founder Sentenced to Five Years in Prison

One of the original developers of the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixer has been sentenced in the Netherlands to more than five years in prison.

Tornado Cash is one of the cryptocurrency mixers used by various hacker groups to launder money. The primary function of such mixers is to ensure that the trail of funds going into the service can’t be tracked. In fact, it’s often been used by North Korean threat actors, among many others, to launder money.

A recent United Nations report revealed that North Korea allegedly laundered $147.5 million through Tornado Cash just this March.

The service itself has been under sanctions by the US Treasury Department since 2022, but that hasn’t stopped the owners of the service.

According to Hacker News, an unnamed Russian national has been sentenced in the Netherlands to five years and four months in prison for his role in Tornado Cash. While the name wasn’t revealed, it’s also known that Alexey Pertsev, who happens to be a Russian national, has been awaiting trial in the Netherlands as well.

“Tornado Cash combines maximum anonymity and optimal concealment techniques with a serious lack of functionalities that make identification, control or investigation possible. Tornado Cash is not a legitimate tool that has unintentionally been abused by criminals, as the defendant presents. Tornado Cash suits criminal use,” says the ruling.

While the defendant insisted he is not responsible for how people use the mixer, the court disagreed.

“Tornado Cash functions in the way the defendant and his co-founders developed Tornado Cash. So the operation is completely their responsibility. If the defendant had wanted to have the possibility to take action against abuse, then he should have built it in. But he did not,” the court added.

The defendant was sentenced to 5 years and 4 months in prison and has to return cryptocurrency valued at about 1.9 million Euro and a Porsche car that was seized during the arrest.