Tornado Cash was added to the US sanctions list by the Office of Foreign Asset Control on August 8. Two days later, Alexey Pertsev, a coder tied to the crypto mixing service, was arrested by Dutch authorities.
The blacklisting and the subsequent events sparked an outcry from privacy proponents, with many protesting and engaging in acts of civil disobedience. But according to intelligence firm, Kharon, Pertsev was formerly employed by a company linked to Russia’s Federal Security Service . The report said, “The individual, identified by various media reports as a developer of Tornado Cash, is a former employee of a Russian company sanctioned for providing support to Russia’s Federal Security Service , Kharon has found.”that Tornado Cash was developed by a Delaware-registered corporation called PepperSec, with Pertsev being its founder and CEO. Pertsev, a Netherlands resident, reportedly worked at Digital Security OOO as an information security specialist and developer of smart contracts.