Tornado Cash developer remanded in custody another 3 months without charge
Alexey Pertsev, developer of Tornado Cash, an open-source cryptocurrency mixing protocol, will remain in custody until his next hearing on April 21, according to a Dutch court ruling.
A court in East Brabant, the Netherlands, has also scheduled a pretrial hearing for May 24. report by block.
August, Dutch authorities arrested Pertsev just days after US Treasury Department Licensed Tornado Cash claims its crypto-hybrid services facilitated money laundering by malicious cyber actors, including a hacking group the FBI accuses of having ties to North Korea.
Tornado Cash has been accused of laundering a total of $7 billion worth of funds, including $455 million stolen by the Lazarus Group with ties to North Korea, FBI says claims.
Tornado Cash is a service that allows users to pool their crypto assets with others. It is an open-source protocol that advocates for privacy in mixing and pooling user funds within multiple wallets, obfuscating the movement of funds in and out, and providing cryptocurrency anonymization services.
According to the Dutch Ministry of Finance (FIOD), Pertsev has been accused of “hiding criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering by mixing cryptocurrencies through the decentralized Ethereum mixing service Tornado Cash.”
However, so far Pertsev has not been formally charged with a crime. He has been detained for 110 days without being formally charged under Dutch law.
Pertsev has had three appeals denied since his arrest, the last one in November 2022.
Several prominent blockchain developers have stood up for Pertsev online, many sharing links to FreeAlex.nl pages and change.org. petitionSo far, there are over 5,000 signatures endorsing Pertsev.
