On August 23, the founders of Tornado Cash were charged with money laundering by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The FBI has successfully arrested one of the co-founders, Storm, while the other co-founder, Semenov, remains at large and is currently evading law enforcement.
Roman Semenov, one of the co-founders of Tornado Cash, a decentralized Ethereum mixer that had been previously sanctioned, was subjected to penalties by the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Coinciding with this, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) also accused and arrested Roman Semenov and his fellow co-founder, Roman Storm, on charges of conspiring to engage in money laundering, operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, and violating offence.
The recent revision of OFAC’s sanctioned entities list also surrounds several Ethereum wallet addresses, with a reference to sanctions regulations related to North Korea.
Among the actions taken, eight wallet addresses have been sanctioned for their involvement in handling over $11.5 million worth of diverse cryptocurrency assets. This data comes from Elliptic Connect, a blockchain analytics company.
“Tornado Cash has been used to launder funds for criminal actors since its creation in 2019, including to obfuscate hundreds of millions of dollars in virtual currency stolen by Lazarus Group hackers,” OFAC said in a statement.
The statement also added, “The Lazarus Group subsequently used Tornado Cash to launder more than $96 million of funds derived from the June 24, 2022 cyber-enabled heist on Harmony’s Horizon bridge, and at least $7.8 million from the August 2, 2022 Nomad heist.”
Also Read: US Court Backs Tornado Cash Sanctions Amid Legal Battle
