Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev to be detained another three months in Amsterdam

Quick Take

  • Alexey Pertsev must remain in jail until at least February, a Dutch court ruled. 
  • Pertsev has been in Dutch jail since August for his role in forming Tornado Cash, a crypto mixer that hackers have used to launder stolen funds. 

Alexey Pertsev, the creator of the crypto mixer Tornado Cash, will be detained in a Dutch jail for another three months, Pertsev's wife Ksenia Malik confirmed.

Dutch authorities arrested Pertsev in August after the U.S. sanctioned Tornado Cash’s alleged role in laundering money and use by North Korean hackers. Pertsev's September appeal was rejected and he was forced to remain in jail until Nov. 22. Now, he must remain incarcerated until at least February. 

If Pertsev, a Russian national, were to be released, he may be sent to fight in the war against Ukraine, The Block reported Malik as saying. She had also previously confirmed that Tornado Cash’s developer is indeed Pertsev. 

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Tornado Cash pools the funds of multiple users before redistributing, or mixing, them. The mixed crypto is often harder to trace, and so hackers looked to Tornado Cash to launder their stolen money. 

Last year, for instance, the crowdfunding platform DAO Maker was hacked, and someone laundered more than $500,000 worth of the stolen funds through Tornado Cash.


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About Authors

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.
Yogita Khatri is a senior reporter at The Block, covering all things crypto. As one of the earliest team members, Yogita has played a pivotal role in breaking numerous stories, exclusives and scoops. With nearly 3,000 articles under her belt, Yogita holds the records as The Block's most-published and most-read author of all time. Prior to joining The Block, Yogita worked at crypto publication CoinDesk and The Economic Times, where she wrote on personal finance. To contact her, email: [email protected]. For her latest work, follow her on X @Yogita_Khatri5.

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