Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Roman Semenov were arrested and charged with wealth laundering and sanctions violations tied to their enactment with the privateness mixer which "facilitated much than $1 cardinal successful wealth laundering" for North Korea's Lazarus Group.
The mixer, which obfuscates the root of funds transacted done it, was sanctioned past twelvemonth by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) aft allegations that Lazarus had laundered the funds from aggregate crypto hacks done it. OFAC sanctioned Semenov arsenic good connected Wednesday.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney Damien Williams said Tornado Cash and its operators "knowingly facilitated" wealth laundering.
"While publically claiming to connection a technically blase privateness service, Storm and Semenov successful information knew that they were helping hackers and fraudsters conceal the fruits of their crimes. Today’s indictment is simply a reminder that wealth laundering done cryptocurrency transactions violates the law, and those who prosecute successful specified laundering volition look prosecution," helium said.
"Tornado Cash has been utilized to launder funds for transgression actors since its instauration successful 2019, including to obfuscate hundreds of millions of dollars successful virtual currency stolen by Lazarus Group hackers," a Treasury property merchandise said.
This is simply a processing communicative and volition beryllium updated.