31-year-old Russian aleksei pertsev was arrested in August 2022 after the introduction of US sanctions against Tornado Cash for facilitating money laundering, the court handed down a sentence on Tuesday – 5.4 years in prison. The court also ordered the confiscation of pertsev’s cryptocurrency assets worth 1.9 million euros. Despite Pertsev’s claim that his intention was to ensure user privacy, the court found him liable for Tornado Cash’s operations, which did not include sufficient mechanisms to prevent abuse.
Tornado Cash functioned as a decentralized cryptocurrency mixer, allowing users to mask transactions by mixing illicit and legitimate funds. The Service did not implement Know Your Customer (KYC) or Anti-Money Laundering (AML) programs as required by US law and was not registered with the US Financial Crimes Enforcement System (FinCEN).
The case has sparked debate between privacy advocates, who argue that anonymous tools should not be criminalized, and governments, which take a hard line against unregulated services that can be used for illegal purposes.