Dutch authorities arrest alleged developer of crypto mixing service Tornado Cash

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An alleged developer of the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixing service has been arrested in the Netherlands. The Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), a government agency that investigates financial crimes, said the 29-year-old man is suspected of “involvement in concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering through the mixing of cryptocurrencies.” The suspect was due to appear before a judge today.

The FIOD started investigating Tornado Cash in June and its Financial Advanced Cyber ​​Team suspects that the platform has been used to conceal the flow of criminal funds on a large scale, including illicit gains from crypto hacks and scams. The agency found that, since the platform launched in 2019, at least $1 billion of crypto of “criminal origin” has been funneled through Tornado Cash, with the service’s creator believed to “have made large-scale profits from these transactions.”

Earlier this week, the US government sanctioned Tornado Cash, a move that prohibits anyone in the country from carrying out any transactions on the service. The Treasury Department claimed that over $7 billion worth of crypto has been laundered through Tornado Cash, including $455 million stolen by North Korea’s state-backed Lazarus Group hacking collective.

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