A 29-year-old man who was believed to be a developer for the Tornado Cash was arrested by Dutch authorities on Friday. The US Treasury put the notorious criptocurrency startup on its sanctions list a few days after the announcement came.
In a press release from the Netherlands Fiscal Information and Investigation Service FIOD, the FIOD arrested a 29-year-old man in Amsterdam on August 10th. He is suspected of being involved in concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering through the mixing of cryptocurrencies through the decentralized Ethereum mixing service, Tornado Cash.
Multiple arrests are not ruled out. Decentralised organisations that may facilitate money laundering and other technologies are receiving extra attention from the FIOD. The FIOD stands for a safe financial Netherlands and investigates with effect and impact in the criptocurrency domain. Today, the suspect is brought before the examining judge, FIOD said.
A tumbler or blender is a service that mixes different streams of potentially identifiablecryptocurrencies to improve the anonymity of transactions and harder to trace. Tornado Cash is one of the largest tumblers identified by the U.S. Treasury.
The US Treasury said in a statement:
The U.S. Department of Treasury s Office of Foreign Assets Control OFAC sanctioned virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, which has been used to launder more than $7 billion of virtual currency since its creation in 2019. Over $455 million was stolen by the Lazarus Group, a Democratic People's Republic of Korea DPRK state-sponsored hacking group sanctioned by the U.S. in 2019, in the largest known virtual currency heist to date. Tornado Cash was used to launder more than $96 million of malicious cyber actors funds derived from the June 24, 2022 Harmony Bridge Heist and at least $7.8 million from August 2, 2022 Nomad Heist. The action was taken pursuant to Executive Order E.O. 13694, as amended, follows OFAC s May 6, 2022 designation of Blender.io Blender Tornado Cash, an ethereum-based criptomixing service that allows users to gain anonymity when transferring assets. The Office of Foreign Assets Control OFAC said on Monday that Tornado Cash was helping hide billions in capital flows, including for North Korean hackers.
The Dutch public prosecutor's office for serious fraud, environmental crime and asset confiscation said Tornado was suspected of having laundered more than $7 billion worth of virtual currency since its inception three years ago.