Alexey Pertsev, the developer behind the crypto protocol Tornado Cash, is due to be released from prison after a Dutch court decided to suspend his “pretrial detention,” allowing him to gear up for his appeal against a money laundering conviction.
In a statement dated February 6, Pertsev expressed that his liberation does not equate to “real freedom” as he will still be under electronic surveillance. “My pretrial detention has been suspended by a Dutch court on the condition of electronic monitoring. This provides me the opportunity to work on my appeal and fight for my rights,” he stated.
Pertsev’s discharge is slated for February 7, 9 am UTC or 10 am local time. Since August 2022, Pertsev has been in detention in the Netherlands.
During his trial, Pertsev contended that he couldn’t be held accountable for the actions of those who exploited the Tornado Cash protocol for illicit or unlawful activities. The court, however, dismissed this argument, conveying that Pertsev and the other founders of Tornado Cash should have implemented stricter measures to thwart criminal usage.
Pertsev, a Russian citizen residing in the Netherlands, was pronounced guilty of money laundering by a Dutch court on May 14 and received a sentence of five years and four months in prison. Pertsev’s legal team promptly filed an appeal, and he has been in pre-trial detention ever since. His bail requests were rejected twice, with the latest denial in July.
The US accused co-founders Roman Storm and Roman Semenov in August 2023 of assisting in the laundering of over $1 billion in crypto through Tornado Cash. Semenov remains elusive and is on the FBI’s most wanted list. Storm is out on a $2 million bond with a trial set for April.
The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash in August 2022, leading to the arrest of the two founders. However, a US court overturned these sanctions on January 21.
Storm, in a January 22 post, claimed he was being “prosecuted for writing open-source code that facilitates private crypto transactions in a completely non-custodial manner.”
Tornado Cash is a non-custodial crypto mixing protocol, which means it doesn’t hold or control funds. Many perceive the prosecution of the platform’s founders as having broader implications for crypto and software development. Storm argued that his prosecution represents a “terrifying criminalization of privacy” that may “criminalize software development itself.”
“This case has already had a chilling effect on developers working on software tools,” he added.
Michael Lewellen, a crypto developer, filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Justice on January 16, arguing that its interpretation of money-transmitting laws in the Tornado Cash case could lead to him facing charges if he released his software.
