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Have you heard that the founder of the privacy mixer Tornado Cash, Alexey Pertsev, was recently arrested by the Dutch police? Yes, that's correct, he's in trouble for allegedly being involved in money laundering activities. It's said that the prosecution is seeking a 64-month prison sentence for him, which is no joke.
This is like a "regulatory shockwave for open-source protocols," and the entire community is in turmoil. We all know that Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control back in August 2022. And with the North Korean hackers incident, the whole situation has become even more complex. Don't just think of this as a technical matter; it involves more than just coding. In 2023, the other two founders, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, were also criminally charged by the U.S. Department of Justice, with a laundry list of charges including conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, and conspiracy to violate sanctions regulations, among others.
Now, Alexey Pertsev's trial has already begun, and the prosecutor is seeking a 64-month prison sentence for him. According to CoinDesk, the indictment lists a plethora of transactions to prove his money laundering activities. Especially notable is a transaction involving over $590 million, which is related to the Axie Infinity's Ronin Network hacker incident. It's said that this hacker incident is one of the largest DeFi thefts in history, which is quite shocking to think about. The entire lawsuit has garnered widespread attention, as it involves the public interest of developer communities, privacy advocates, and other groups. Roman Storm even sought community support to raise legal defense funds, raising over $1.51 million. This shows just how much attention this case has attracted. |
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