The Tornado Cash mixer temporarily disappeared from the list of sanctions of the OFAC – the Office for Control of Foreign Assets of the US Treasury, in order to reappear with tougher formulations. The ETH coin mixing platform came under US restrictions in August of this year.
The US Treasury then accused Tornado Cash of helping hackers launder stolen tokens from users, and in particular because of the activities of Lazarus Group.
A well-known group of North Korean programmers works in the interests of the DPRK, not only stealing secrets and disrupting the critical infrastructure of the "enemies of the state", but also stealing digital currency. The funds received are used to finance the development of the military industry.
The new accusation formula directly links the work of Tornado Cash with the support of the North Korean state. This move is intended to complicate lawsuits from initiative groups criticizing the US Treasury in an attack on technology.
Tornado Cash is an open source smart contract and the application is free to use by anyone. The Dutch authorities believe otherwise, having arrested the creator of the code Alexey Pertsev. The investigating authorities intend to prove that the programmer worked in the interests of the special services and thus is guilty of facilitating money laundering.
