Dutch court denies Tornado Cash developer bail

What’s new? The Court of Appeal in the city of Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands has refused to grant bail to Alexey Pertsev, the developer of crypto mixer Tornado Cash, keeping his detention in force. Pertsev’s lawyers insisted that their client needs access to a computer and the Internet to prepare for an appeal, and he has no intention of fleeing the country.

Material by DL News

What else is known? In August 2022, the US authorities placed Tornado Cash on the sanctions list for laundering criminal funds associated with, among other things, hackers from the DPRK. A few days later, Pertsev, a 31-year-old Russian citizen, was arrested in the Netherlands, and on May 14, 2024, he received 64 months in prison on charges of laundering $1,2 billion.

The developer intends to appeal the verdict, with the court insisting that his imprisonment does not prevent the preparation of an appeal, therefore bail was denied. In turn, defense lawyers Keith Cheng and Judith de Boer noted that Pertsev was not provided with a computer with Internet access because it was against the prison’s security policy.

The lawyers insist that the case has many complex technical aspects related to smart contracts, protocol management, and relaying and that they themselves, not being programmers, cannot fully prepare for the drafting of a complaint against the verdict.

As for the case itself, the lawyers called it unprecedented, specifying that the software developer was held criminally liable for the way his product was used by third parties. A similar argument in defense of the creators of Tornado Cash was previously voiced by prominent representatives of the crypto community, including the co-founder of the Cardano and Ethereum blockchains Charles Hoskinson.

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According to the lawyers, it would be better for the legal system if Pertsev was released to prepare for an appeal.

In August 2023, Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm was arrested in the United States and later released on bail. He, along with his colleague Roman Semenov, who is outside the US, were also charged by the authorities with money laundering to the tune of $1 billion.

Last October, the US Treasury Department labeled crypto mixers a threat to national security. In March of this year, a jury in the United States found the founder of crypto mixer Bitcoin Fog Roman Sterlingov guilty of money laundering, he faces 50 years in prison.

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In April, the founders of crypto mixer Samourai Wallet, Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, were arrested on similar charges and released on $1 million and $3 million bail, respectively.