- Alexey Pertsev is the developer of the prohibited Tornado Cash platform.
- Pertsev was arrested by Dutch officials in August 2022.
- The Dutch court had previously ordered to keep Pertsev detained until his next hearing in late April.
Tornado Cash’s native token TORN has surged by 15% after a Dutch court decided to release Alexey Pertsev, the creator of the mixing service Tornado Cash.
Despite being banned, TORN has performed incredibly well in the last week, rising by more than 30% in value.
Alexey Pertsev’s Arrest and Detention
Dutch authorities arrested Alexey Pertsev in August 2022 shortly after the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash.
The US Treasury Department alleged that multiple hacker groups, including North Korea-sponsored Lazarus Group, used the crypto mixer to launder stolen funds. It alleged that since 2019, hackers had laundered over $7 billion worth of cryptocurrencies, including the $80 million taken from Ethereum-based stablecoin protocol Beanstalk Farms in April 2022.
The Tornado Cash ban has, however, been met with criticism from many quarters, including from crypto advocacy group Coin Center which filed a legal complaint in October 2022, contending that the Treasury had overstepped by sanctioning crypto investors in the US. Coinbase too recently supported a lawsuit filed by six complainants against Tornado Cash.
Two months ago, a Dutch court ruled that Alexey Pertsev should remain detained until his next hearing in late April. However, a judge has now decided to release him, albeit with certain conditions.
