Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev, who was found guilty of laundering $2.2 Billion, has been sentenced to 5 years in prison by the Dutch court.
The ongoing Tornado Cash case has entered a new phase, with the Tornado Cash developer sentenced to 5 years in prison by a Netherlands court. Alexey Pertsev was found guilty of laundering $2.2 Billion in illicit assets on the crypto mixer’s platform.
The Judgment on Tornado Cash Case
On May 14, the Netherlands court announced its final hearing on the Tornado Cash case. The Russian, 31, has been sentenced to 64 months imprisonment for laundering $2.2 Billion in illicit assets using crypto mixers.
Crypto mixers combine and distribute digital assets to make transactions safer and harder to trace. CoinDesk tweeted the court sentence.
Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev has been sentenced to 64 months in prison by a Netherlands court. https://t.co/y7NWFdZoYz
— CoinDesk (@CoinDesk) May 15, 2024
According to the three judges, the decision is a warning to other software developers working on privacy-preserving technologies. Tornado Cash, the open-source and fully decentralized cryptocurrency tumbler, was allegedly working as a favorable tool for criminals.
However, Pertsev can appeal his sentence within 14 days of the sentencing.
The $2.3 Billion Tornado Cash Case
Tornado Cash was introduced as a cryptocurrency mixer in 2019 and got blacklisted by the US Department of the Treasury in August 2022. The platform had announced resources that the government blacklisted.
Here's the list of Tornado Cash resources that were banned
— ️ Tornado.cash ️ (@TornadoCash) August 9, 2022
– Tornado Cash @GitHub organization
– personal @GitHub accounts of TC contributors
– all $USDC on Tornado Cash contracts @circlepay
– @infura_io RPC
– @AlchemyPlatform RPC
– https://t.co/SHvgEjTOMV domain @eth_limo
The platform has reportedly laundered over $2.3 Billion in digital assets since its launch. Furthermore, two co-founders, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, faced allegations of money laundering and were set to go on trial in September.
Pertsev, on the other hand, was sentenced to 64 months in jail.
How TORN Reacted To Pertsev’s Arrest
As per the current market situation and the Tornado Cash case, any transaction involving TORN, the native currency of the platform, is illegal in the United States.
According to CoinMarketCap, in the past 1 year, the TORN coin had dropped 56.21% and was trading at $2.77 with a market cap of $14,585,267 at publication time.
TORN Price I Source: CoinMarketCap
After the news of Pertsev’s sentencing dropped, TORN went from $2.837 to $2.77, which is a drop of 2.911% intraday.
