The U.S. Treasury has reportedly issued sanctions on Tornado Cash, a virtual currency mixer, for laundering more than $7 billion in cryptocurrency derived from criminal activity. According to US officials, at least $455 million of that figure was move for the Lazarus Group, which is known to be sponsored by North Korea. The funds may even be used to help fund the country’s missile program, officials say. The U.S. Treasury revealed the action earlier this week, announcing that Tornado Cash will be subject to federal regulations that both freeze its assets and prohibit anyone from doing business with the service. To justify the sanctions, the US cited several occasions in which the platform was used to launder cryptocurrency for hackers.
Tornado Cash’s website has already been taking offline. Any transaction having to do with the service or its affiliated groups are now blocked within the US, sources say. Tornado Cash was also accused to laundering $96 million worth of cybercriminal funds that were stolen as a result of cryptocurrency theft from the Horizon blockchain bridge from Harmony. In addition, the funds stolen from Nomad crypto in an August 2 attack were laundered through Tornado Cash.
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