- The developer was taken into custody on August 12 for alleged money laundering.
- Pertsev must remain in detention for an additional three months.
On Tuesday, a court in the Netherlands extended the prison sentence of Alexey Pertsev, the programmer behind the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash. Reportedly, the court rejected claims that Perstev lacked the authority to manage Tornado Cash. Moreover, prosecutors said that the developer is essential to the crypto mixer’s operation. The developer was taken into custody on August 12 for alleged money laundering using Tornado Cash.
Furthermore, at the time, Dutch police said that the mixer was used in crypto frauds and hacks to conceal the identities of those involved in the transactions. After that, the United States Treasury Department banned Tornado Cash and issued penalties on certain IP addresses. The change was made to safeguard customers against decentralized finance (DeFi) vulnerabilities.
International Outrage Over Arrest
According to the most recent court ruling, Pertsev must remain in detention for an additional three months. The next hearing is set on February 20, 2023. When the judge handed down his sentence on August 25, Pertsev went to jail for the next three months. Many in the crypto community were outraged by the decision, and some even staged a rally to show their disapproval. Protesters wanted authorities to go after hackers and thieves instead of programmers.
Moreover, protests in Amsterdam and a tweet from Edward Snowden linking Perstev’s treatment to that of executives at the defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX have sparked international outrage over his arrest and incarceration.
Withdrawals are made from anonymized liquidity pools provided by the Tornado protocol, making it hard to trace the origin of the transaction.
