Dutch court to release Tornado Cash dev Alexey Pertsev under surveillance News ▸ Netherlands ▸ Legal
Dutch court to release Tornado Cash dev Alexey Pertsev under surveillance
Alexey Pertsev will be released on April 26 with an ankle monitor and will be able to attend his hearings from home.
2 min read
Updated: Jul. 16, 2023 at 9:13 am UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
A Dutch court approved a request from Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev to be released under surveillance during his third pro forma hearing on April 20.
Pertsev will be released on April 26 with an ankle monitor and will be able to attend his hearings from home, according to CryptoCanal founder Eléonore Blanc, who was present at the hearing.
Blanc — who is organizing the ETH.DAM event — told CryptoSlate that Pertsev spoke for himself during the hearing and admirably defended his right to personal freedom and the right to be a “crypto builder.”
She added:
“For once, the judge heard him and under certain conditions, as of next week, he will be able to roam in the Netherlands until his trial.”
The court previously rejected Pertsev’s request to be freed under surveillance in February on the basis that he was a flight risk.
Under the conditions set by the judge, Pertsev must wear an ankle monitor and remain under house arrest most of the time, with some exceptions. He is also required to regularly report to the police.
Blanc added that the judge allowed Pertsev to attend the ETH.DAM crypto event in May.
The Arrest
Pertsev is a Russian national who lives in the Netherlands with his wife. He was one of the lead developers behind Tornado Cash, which was sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2022 after various hacker groups used it to move their ill-gotten gains.
The U.S. claimed at the time that hackers had laundered more than $7 billion worth of stolen cryptocurrency through the crypto mixer in roughly three years since 2019.
Following the sanctions, Dutch authorities arrested Pertsev for his role in developing the crypto privacy tool.
The arrest caused a furor among the crypto community, with many expressing shock and disbelief at someone being arrested for writing code. However, Dutch courts did not agree with the sentiment and greenlit a trial against the developer in August 2022.
Two weeks after his arrest, the court ruled that Pertsev must spend 90 additional days in jail pending his trial. However, it has been more than 250 days since the arrest was made and the trial has yet to come.
Author 
Assad Jafri
AJ, a passionate journalist since Yemen's 2011 Arab Spring, has honed his skills worldwide for over a decade. Specializing in financial journalism, he now focuses on crypto reporting.
