The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas has lifted financial sanctions against Tornado Cash, in what could be a major victory in the case against the crypto mixer and its developer Alexey Pertsev.
In August 2022, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash. The agency accused the protocol of helping the North Korean hacker group Lazarus launder more than $455 million in stolen digital assets.
OFAC sanctions led to the arrest of Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev. On May 14, 2024, a Dutch court found him guilty of laundering $1,2 billion and sentenced him to five years and four months in prison. However, the judges rejected the developer and his lawyers’ arguments that he operated a non-custodial crypto mixer that never holds or controls users’ funds.
Pertsev also stated that he could not be held responsible for the actions of those who used the Tornado Cash protocol for nefarious or illegal purposes.
According to the court, if Pertsev and the other Tornado Cash co-founders really wanted to prevent abuse of the protocol, they would have taken additional measures to ensure security.
It remains to be seen how the US court's lifting of OFAC sanctions against Tornado Cash will affect Pertsev's fate. For now, he continues to serve his sentence in a Dutch prison.
