Founders of crypto mixer arrested, sanctioned after US cracks down on Tornado Cash

By FATIMA HUSSEIN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. government officials on Wednesday started cracking down on co-founders of the virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, just days after a federal judge decided that the government had the authority to sanction them. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has sanctioned Roman Semenov of Russia, one of the three co-founders of Tornado Cash, for allegedly supporting the North Korean hacking organization Lazarus Group, among other things. Tornado Cash and other mixing services combine various digital assets, including potentially illegally obtained funds along with legitimately obtained funds, so that illegal actors can obscure the origin of the stolen funds.