The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has added Roman Semenov to its Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, which includes his eight Ethereum addresses. OFAC states that he is a Russian citizen who has resided in Dubai and lists his eight Ethereum addresses along with their associated profiles on Etherscan.
On August 23, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Roman Semenov, one of three co-founders of Tornado Cash, an anonymous cryptocurrency mixer used by North Korean hackers to launder millions of dollars stolen from banks. Since its inception in 2019, Tornado Cash has been used by criminals to launder money including funds stolen by the Lazarus Group hackers.
In a joint action with the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Treasury Department today filed criminal charges against Sergei Mennov and Roman Storm, two co-founders of Tornado Cash. A third co-founder, Alexey Pertsev, was arrested in The Netherlands earlier this month on money laundering charges related to the same alleged activities. DOJ alleges that Mennov, Storm and Pertsev conspired to conduct money laundering, operate unlicensed currency transmission businesses and violate sanctions regulations.
In 2019, Lazarus Group was sanctioned by the United States for attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges. In 2022, it used the Tornado Cash blockchain to conceal the theft of over $4.55 million in stolen funds, which is the largest known virtual currency theft to date. Later that year, the group used Tornado Cash to clean up funds stolen in an attack on Harmony’s Horizon bridge on June 24 ($96 million) and another $780,000 stolen from Nomad on August 2. These funds were provided to North Korea as resources for its ballistic missile programs and nuclear weapons program.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and its Criminal Investigation division today announced actions against the operators of a digital currency exchange service used to launder millions of dollars in proceeds from ransomware attacks and other criminal activities.
