The platform was put on the sanctions list due to suspicions of money laundering. In addition to Tornado Cash, the sanctions included 6 USDC 39 Ethereum addresses associated with it.
In total, the wallets that were blocked contained about $437 million. These were mostly stablecoins, ETH and WBTC.
As noted by OFAC, which put Tornado Cash on the sanctions list, the offenders have managed to “launder” $7 billion worth of cryptocurrencies thanks to the cryptocurrency mixer since its creation. There was also a trail of South Korean hackers from Lazarus Group. According to the agency, they were able to conduct transactions worth $455 million.
In addition, the platform was used to whitewash funds stolen due to the hacking attack on the Harmony network. Then, in July 2022, $96 million was stolen. Tornado Cash did not pass by the robbery of the Nomad cross-chain protocol. According to U.S. law enforcement officials, it was the cryptocurrency mixer that was used by criminals to whitewash the $7.8 million stolen in early August. Most of the assets withdrawn from the platform were “wrapped” like WBTC and USDC. As for the addresses to which the assets were withdrawn, SlowMist representatives noted that the transfers were made to three Ethereum addresses. The investigation was conducted with the help of the MistTrack platform.
As a result, the regulator blocked all Tornado Cash assets in the U.S. A ban on any work with the service on the country’s territory was also issued for citizens.
