On August 23, the U.S. Department of Justice filed charges against two co-founders of the crypto mixer Tornado Cash — Roman Storm and Roman Semenov — for money laundering and sanctions violations.
The FBI has detained Storm. Semenov remains at large, but the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has added him to the sanctions list.
According to authorities, both individuals conspired to launder money, violate sanctions, and operate an unlicensed business.
“Roman Storm and Roman Semenov allegedly operated Tornado Cash and deliberately aided in laundering funds. Publicly claiming to offer a technically sophisticated confidentiality service, the defendants knew that they were helping hackers and fraudsters conceal the proceeds of their crimes,” according to OFAC.
According to analytics firm Elliptic Connect, eight mixer-associated addresses sanctioned under OFAC processed more than $11.5 million in various crypto assets.
In August 2022, OFAC added to the sanctions list the Tornado Cash site, through which, according to the agency, attackers laundered more than $7 billion in cryptocurrency. More than $455 million of them are linked to the North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group.
On 12 August, Dutch authorities arrested developer Alexey Pertsev on suspicion of involvement in money laundering and concealing criminal financial flows. He denied all charges against him.
Earlier in April 2023, the court changed Pertsev’s remand to house arrest.