WASHINGTON, August 23. /TASS/. The US Treasury has imposed sanctions against Roman Semenov, who, according to Washington, is one of the founders of the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency service. This is according to a written statement by the financial department.
It claims that the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) "sanctioned Roman Semenov, one of three co-founders of the sanctioned virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, for his role in providing material support to Tornado Cash and to the Lazarus Group, a state-sponsored hacking group that is an instrumentality of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea)."
Tornado Cash, which came under the US sanctions last year, "has been used to launder funds for criminal actors since its creation in 2019, including to obfuscate hundreds of millions of dollars in virtual currency stolen by Lazarus Group hackers," the US Treasury said. Lazarus Group was also sanctioned by the US last year.
In addition to that the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against Semenov and the second co-founder of Tornado Cash, Roman Storm, who was arrested today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation.
"The DOJ charged Semenov and Storm with conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, and conspiracy to commit sanctions violations. A third co-founder of Tornado Cash, Alexey Pertsev, was arrested on related money laundering charges in the Netherlands in August 2022 by Dutch law enforcement authorities," the US Treasury noted.
According to the US authorities, Tornado Cash allegedly laundered more than $1 billion in criminal proceeds.
Inclusion in the sanctions list means the seizure of assets in the United States and the prohibition of American citizens and companies from doing business with its defendants.