Just In: Suspected Tornado Cash Dev Detained After U.S. Ban

The Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) of the Netherland announced that it has arrested the suspected developer of the Tornado Cash. Recently, a U.S agency launched sanctions over the crypto mixing platform.

More arrests to come in relation to Tornado Cash

Tornado Cash has been accused of laundering funds connected to cybercrimes. However, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned the crypto mixer for cleaning billion worth of funds.

As per the report, the detained person was produced in front of the examining judge. The agency suggested that multiple arrests can be done in the future regarding the investigation. However, it highlighted that FIOD is giving extra attention to these kinds of crimes lately.

The Financial Advanced Cyber Team (FACT) which works under FIOD launched an inquiry against Tornado Cash, back in June 2022. The FACT conducted that the platform was widely used to tuck away heavy funds involved in criminal activity. This also included crypto hacks, thefts, and scams.

It mentioned that the funds stolen by the North Korean hacking group were laundered by Tornado Cash. The FACT team suggests that since its inception in 2019, the crypto mixer platform made a turnover of around $7 billion.

Crypto mixer made billions in profit

The report added that over $1 billion worth of digital assets related to criminal origin has been passed through Tornado Cash. it is suspected that its maker has generated huge amounts of profits from these transactions.

Meanwhile, the US government placed Tornado Cash on the OFAC sanctions list on August 8, 2022. While an investigation has been launched for serious fraud and asset confiscation by the public prosecutor’s office.

However, the blockchain community witnessed that an alternate website with continued access to Tornado Cash being developed and hosted.

Patrick Collins, a developer advocate for Chainlink revealed that some developers have jumped into action in counter to the ban. However, they have successfully made a gateway with an obscure link redirecting to Tornado Cash.