Tornado Cash developer Alex Pertsev is about to be released after nearly nine months in prison. Last August, Pertsev was arrested by Dutch authorities for alleged involvement in money laundering via cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash.
Sources familiar with the news that Pertsev will return home on April 26, which happens to be his birthday. Probation under surveillance means jailed Tornado Cash developers can go to jail, awaiting trial at home. Pertsev was arrested on Aug. 8, shortly after the US Treasury Department placed dozens of Tornado Cash addresses on the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list.
According to Pertsev's wife, the suspension of the release will put Pertsev under the supervision of ankle monitors, who spoke to Cointelegraph and expressed her delight at the new news:
"I believe now we will be able to fully prepare a defense and prove that Alex did nothing that he was accused of and I am very sorry for the time he wasted in jail. It has had a huge impact on him and on me .It has Fundamentally changed our lives. But the most important thing is that he will be free soon." Earlier, in November, a Dutch court rejected the developer's request for supervised release, citing prosecutors' claim that Pertsev was a flight risk. Prosecutors argued that Pertsev was central to Tornado Cash's operations. The developer's bail was denied again in February. Crypto mixers, or mixing services, are platforms that are often used to obfuscate the origin of crypto transactions. The purpose of these mixers is to make transactions anonymous and difficult to trace.These platforms often mix one cryptocurrency transaction with others and send them to different wallet addresses. Tornado Cash was one of the most popular mixing services pre-sanctions.
News of Pertsev's release under surveillance has sparked jubilation in the crypto community. The founder of crypto educator Crypto Canal, who was present at the hearing, said the most important thing was that Pertsev "could move around and defend himself, which is almost in custody."
