Tornado Cash Money Launderer Arrested by FIOD
A suspected person has been caught in the Netherlands for potentially assisting in money laundering via Tornado Cash (a sanctioned protocol). On Friday, the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) noted in its statement that the individual had a suspected engagement with hiding illegal financial flows as well as assisting in the activities related to money laundering.
FIOD Scrutinizes Tornado Cash
It was disclosed by the FIOD that the Financial Advanced Cyber Team (FACT) working under it began a criminal investigation over the Ethereum mixer Tornado Cash in the recent June. They mentioned that according to the apprehension of the FACT, Tornado Cash has been utilized to hide money flows at a huge scale, taking into account the online crypto theft through scams and hacks. In these operations, those exploits are also included that are linked to a group belonging to North Korea.
The establishment of Tornado Cash was witnessed in 2019 and it has reached a revenue of a minimum of $7B up till now, as per the FACT. Investigations brought to the front that nearly $1B worth of crypto earned from criminal activities was approved via the mixer. The agency suspected that the people at the back of the respective institution have acquired gains at a significant scale from such transfers.
FIOD additionally asserted that they will provide more attention to decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) in the future. It was then reported that FIOD claimed to have taken the suspect in front of a judge on Friday in Den Bosch. The declaration of the respective arrest witnessed a huge number of holders endeavoring to sell TORN and its prices declined to lower than $13.50 (from $17).
Reasons behind Sanctioning Tornado Cash
The position of Tornado Cash is that of an Ethereum mixer and the US Treasury sanctioned it this week for the alleged scams, hacks, as well as other illegal activities in which up to $7B has been laundered by the bad actors since 2019. The service enables concealing the destination or source of the crypto assets through pooling funds as well as then their redistribution to obscure the transfer, heightening anonymity.
The arrest has been witnessed after the disclosure by Elliptic (a blockchain analysis venue) that RenBridge (a cross-chain bridge platform) has witnessed the money laundering of up to $500M via its venue since 2020.
