The Dutch government has sentenced a 31-year-old Russian to several years in prison for creating Tornado Cash mixer, a cryptocurrency mixer that is widely utilized by North Korea and deemed illegal.
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The individual who created and oversaw Tornado Cash has been given a prison sentence of five years and four months by Dutch authorities.
From July 2019 until his arrest in August 2022, the individual from Russia who remains unidentified and was residing in the Netherlands at that time had dealings with the crypto mixer.
The Tornado Cash mixer software is thought to have facilitated the laundering of more than $2 billion by multiple cybercriminals.
Functionality
Its functionality lets users obscure the source of their cryptocurrency, thus permitting them to launder illicit money acquired through ransomware or theft.
Whilst the suspect purportedly claims that they had no intention of breaking the law or aiding criminal operations, Tornado Cash’s developers relied on users to use their software responsibly despite taking minimal measures against misuse.
According to Dutch officials, the suspect and his co-founders created Tornado Cash as intended and bear complete responsibility for its operation. They assert that if safeguards against potential misuse were important to the suspect, he should have incorporated them into the system.
The suspect’s situation was not improved by the fact that Dutch courts were in possession of multiple chat messages, which demonstrated his involvement in various hacks resulting in cryptocurrency theft and subsequent transfer to Tornado Cash.
Arrest
According to the statement, even with his arrest looming, the suspect persisted in advancing Tornado Cash and distributing it without constraints.
In fact, he made continuous improvements that augmented user anonymity every step of the way.
Apart from serving a sentence in prison, the accused had their Porsche and cryptocurrency valued at €1.9 million ($2 million) confiscated.
Just this March, an amount of $147.5 million in cryptocurrency was reportedly laundered by North Korea using Tornado Cash according to the United Nations earlier this week.
Tornado Cash played a crucial part in laundering $625 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen by the North Korean hacker group Lazarus from Axie Infinity during the Ronin exchange hack.
According to Dutch authorities, approximately $450 million of the purloined currency was funneled into Tornado Cash and laundered. As far back as 2022, Tornado Cash has been placed under sanctions by the US Treasury.
