A new press release by the US Treasury reveals that the agency's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash. According to the publication, following its launch in 2019, Tornado has been used for laundering digital currencies worth over $7 bln.
Related: The hackers of Lazarus are the target of US prosecutors
Tornado is an Ethereum-based service that executes private transactions by receiving and mixing them and then conducting them to recipients.
The Treasury says although the claimed goal of the service is to ensure privacy, mixers such as Tornado are widely used by criminals for fund laundering, particularly those stolen in major heists. The agency says Tornado was used in large cyber attacks, including the exploit of the Ronin Bridge by North Korean hackers known as Lazarus group, the hacks of Harmony, and Nomad.
A few months ago, officials sanctioned another crypto mixer, Blender. Reportedly Blender was used to process over $20.5 M generated through malicious activities in a $620 M hack of the online game Axie Infinity.