Lawyers for the privacy protocol developer facing money laundering charges in the Netherlands have disputed the evidence purporting to prove links to criminal money.
‘S HERTOGENBOSCH, the Netherlands – Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev will be allowed to cross-question blockchain tech analytics company Chainalysis as he seeks to clear his name of money laundering charges, a Dutch court ruled on Wednesday.
Pertsev was arrested and detained on the orders of Dutch financial felony enforcers FIOD in August of a year ago, just days after the privacy protocol was sanctioned by the United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
OFAC has stated Tornado Cash was used by North Korean attackers to process and obscure the source of funds for the regime, but Pertsev’s case has drawn protest from online rights activists who see it as a threat to open-source coding and online privacy.
Pertsev’s lawyer Keith Cheng informed CoinDesk outside the courtroom that he was “happy” the court had allowed him to directly ask Chainalysis in writing about its methods.
“You’re not going to have a hamburger analyzed at the laboratory… I say let’s go to the meat factory,” Cheng stated. “Just ask them what the ingredients are.”
FIOD explanations had proved technically unsatisfactory, such as its citing of the existence of “user agents” that do not exist on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain tech, Cheng said.
Pertsev, who in April was freed to await trial from his home near Amsterdam, has rejected charges of money laundering. On the other hand, with a further hearing set for September, his case now looks set to drag on into 2024.
On Saturday, Tornado Cash was the subject of an apparently malicious attack that allowed a hacker or group of attackers to seize control of the protocol, causing its TORN crypto token to plunge.
Chainalysis did not instantly respond to a request for comment.
Sandali Handagama.
