Tornado Cash dev Alexey Pertsev trial set for March

The Tornado Cash developer facing charges in the Netherlands will sit trial on March 26 and 27, the district court handling his case confirmed.

Alexey Pertsev, a Russian national living in the Netherlands, will return to the courtroom in the Dutch city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch on Wednesday for his fourth pre-trial hearing.

Pertsev was detained for nine months following his arrest in August 2022, two days after the US Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash, alleging that the privacy protocol facilitated money laundering by a North Korean cybercrime group among others.

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His arrest was carried out on the orders of Dutch financial crime authority, the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service, or FIOD. He was released under house arrest in April, and in May, Perstev was released under the condition he does not leave the country and wears a GPS monitor.

US prosecutors charged two Tornado Cash co-founders in August, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, alleging the protocol they helped develop laundered over $1 billion worth of illicit funds.

For Pertsev, the judge will assess whether prosecutors and the defence have the evidence they need ahead of the trial in a block of three hours on Wednesday. Pertsev and his lawyer will have the chance to request further investigation to support their case.

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As a formality, the court will also assess whether Pertsev will need to be detained again ahead of his trial.

The legal cases surrounding Tornado Cash have sparked unrest among DeFi software developers, and who regulators can hold liable in non-traditional structures of organisations.

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