US Treasury Department imposes sanctions on Tornado Cash

The United States has imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash, a service accused of laundering stolen cryptocurrencies.

On Monday, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the U.S. Treasury Department’s supervisory agency responsible for sanctions violations, confirmed sanctions against Tornado Cash. The agency has banned US citizens and businesses from using the platform’s services.

Theaction against Tornado is a «watershed» moment and «the most significant action the Treasury Department has taken in the crypto space to date,» said Ari Redbird, head of legal and government affairs at TRM Labs, a blockchain analysis firm used by governments and financial institutions to fight fraud, money laundering and email financial crimes.

The North Korean company Tornado Cash allows users to conduct private transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. Since its inception (in 2019), the service has laundered more than $ 7 billion worth of cryptocurrency. Tornado Cash allows customers to hide their crypto funds, and we have previously written in detail about its operation.

A senior official of the Biden administration said that since the beginning of Tornado Cash’s existence, there have been seven major hacker attacks on American companies that work with cryptocurrencies.

North Korea is accused of using hacker systems to steal money to finance the Kim Jong Un regime. Earlier we reported that the US State Department announced a $ 10 million reward for information that will help prevent cyber espionage, theft of cryptocurrency and critical information by hackers from North Korea.