Seven US Representatives Ask Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Why Tornado Cash Remains Online Despite Sanctions

A handful of Democratic U.S. representatives are criticizing Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen over the continued accessibility of Twister Money, an Ethereum (ETH)-based coin-mixing system that helps customers conceal their digital property.

The US permitted the controversial challenge in 2022 on nationwide safety grounds, however seven members of the Home of Representatives wrote to Yellen final week requesting details about the mixer and its present use.

The group of lawmakers, together with outspoken anti-crypto critic Brad Sherman (D-California), says Twister Money has remained on-line and continued to perform as decentralized sensible contracts regardless of the sanctions.

“Twister Money’s US web site has been taken offline, though the sensible contracts can run indefinitely and anybody can technically use Twister Money at any time. The user-friendly web site made it simpler to make use of the service, though “superior” customers can nonetheless entry the sensible contracts immediately, the Justice Division stated.

Cryptocurrency mixers pose critical nationwide safety dangers and are utilized by quite a lot of illicit actors, together with North Korea, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Because the Treasury Division has famous, underneath the strain of US and United Nations sanctions, North Korea has resorted to unlawful actions, together with cyber robberies of cryptocurrency exchanges and monetary establishments, to generate income for its illegal weapons of mass destruction and ballistic weapons. rocket packages. North Korean hackers have stolen greater than $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency since 2017, in keeping with UN sanctions specialists.”

Lawmakers have requested the Treasury Division to supply estimates of the extent of unlawful and bonafide exercise channeled by way of Twister Money since August 2022. In addition they ask whether or not the Treasury Division takes motion in opposition to people and/or crypto exchanges that settle for combined funds from the platform.

Certainly one of Twister Money’s founders, Roman Storm, was arrested final 12 months and charged with laundering $1 billion in legal proceeds, together with a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} for the Lazarus Group, the sanctioned North Korean cybercriminal group.

Storm’s trial was just lately postponed from December to April 2025.

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