A prosecutor’s verdict in Alexey Pertsev’s case against money laundering with Tornado Cash argues he didn’t look away
Those properties are what make Tornado Cash such a powerful tool for privacy, according to Pertsev’s defenders. According to Sjors Provoost, who attended the trial, the entire point of the system is this one. There are completely clashing viewpoints. There’s the worldview of privacy and decentralization, and there’s the government worldview of surveillance, in which you need to be able to check every transaction.”
Money-laundering activity accounted for more than 30 percent of funds that passed through Tornado Cash during the last four years, according to the Dutch prosecutors. Meanwhile, Pertsev “deliberately looked away,” they say, doing “nothing” to prevent the criminal activity. Pertsev knew what was happening, but chose not to intervene according to the prosecutors.
A panel of judges in the Netherlands has found Alexey Pertsev, one of the developers behind crypto anonymizing tool Tornado Cash, guilty of money laundering.
The court said that Tornado Cash created a shortcut for financing crimes and terrorism. He didn’t take responsibility for the abuse because he chose to look away.
The arrest of Pertsev prompted protests among privacy and coin advocates outside of the trial on the opening day. His defenders claim it is unjust for a developer of open source software to be held responsible for the behavior of users, and say the verdict will have a chilling effect on the development of privacy-preserving software.