The East Brabant District Court sentenced Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev to five years and four months in prison for money laundering on May 14, 2024. The judgment turned on the court’s view that Tornado Cash did more than provide privacy software: when used with criminal proceeds, the service itself concealed their origin, ownership and destination, and its developers could have built in safeguards.
What the Dutch court decided
The East Brabant District Court sentenced Pertsev, a 31-year-old Russian man residing in Amstelveen, to five years and four months—64 months—in prison. The judgment was a first-instance ruling, not an appellate decision. Contemporary reporting identified the defendant as Pertsev; the court’s English summary described him as a Tornado Cash developer. The court’s May 14, 2024 summary says he developed and maintained the service, which had been created with two other people. The Record also identified him as Pertsev.
How Tornado Cash worked, according to the judgment
The court described Tornado Cash as a service using pools that accepted cryptocurrency from one wallet address and enabled withdrawals to another. By breaking the visible transaction trail, the service could conceal where funds came from, who actually owned them and where they went. The court said Pertsev further developed the tool from July 2019 until his arrest in August 2022. The official summary sets out that account.
Why the court found Pertsev guilty
Pertsev argued that he did not intend to break the law or facilitate crime. He presented Tornado Cash as a tool for legitimate privacy and argued that its technical design made effective prevention of criminal use impossible. The court rejected that account. In its view, when criminal proceeds passed through the service, Tornado Cash carried out the concealment activity; it was not merely a neutral instrument used by individuals.
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The court also held that developers bore responsibility for how the service functioned, reasoning that safeguards could have been built in but were not. It found that Pertsev knew the service was being used to launder money and kept developing it without restrictions despite an evident and foreseeable risk of criminal use. Those are the court’s findings and legal reasoning, rather than a general technical finding about every privacy tool.
“When executing these activities with cryptocurrency derived from crime, Tornado Cash carries out money laundering activities.”
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The court’s summary also states: “Tornado Cash is not a legitimate tool that has unintentionally been abused by criminals, as the defendant presents.” Both quotations are from the East Brabant District Court’s English summary.
How much cryptocurrency did the court associate with criminal activity?
The court gave two Ether totals based on different calculation methods. They should not be treated as interchangeable measures:
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| Figure | What it represents | Qualification |
|---|---|---|
| $1.2 billion | Ether associated with 36 digital thefts | The East Brabant District Court’s 2024 summary says this figure follows the parameters used to select hacks and calls 36 a lower limit. |
| $2.2 billion | Criminal Ether identified when those selection parameters are removed | A broader amount in the same 2024 court summary, calculated without the selection parameters used for the $1.2 billion figure. |
The court also described the Axie Infinity hack, in which $625 million was stolen, as a prominent example: almost $450 million of that amount was deposited in Tornado Cash. These figures are the court’s case account, not a claim that the two totals use identical criteria. The court’s summary explains the distinction.
What is known about Pertsev’s appeal?
The Block reported on February 7, 2025 that Pertsev had appealed and that a Dutch court suspended his pretrial detention subject to electronic monitoring so he could work on the appeal. That report establishes the appeal was reported at that time; it does not establish its later status or outcome. The sources cited here do not confirm whether the conviction was affirmed, overturned or otherwise resolved on appeal.
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How the Dutch case differs from U.S. Tornado Cash charges
Roman Storm and Roman Semenov faced separate U.S. charges related to Tornado Cash. The U.S. Department of Justice’s 2023 announcement described allegations in an indictment, not findings in Pertsev’s Dutch case. The DOJ release concerns different defendants and separate proceedings; it should not be read as part of the East Brabant District Court’s judgment.
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