Webinar: Flash TRM Talk: Treasury sanctions widely used crypto mixer Tornado Cash by TRM Labs

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A special edition TRM Talk in the hours following U.S. Treasury's designation of Ethereum-based cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, which has been used by North Korean cyber-criminals and other threat actors to launder the proceeds of hacks and other illicit activity.

About This Webinar

Today the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctioned cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash, which has been used by North Korean cyber criminals such as state-sponsored Lazarus Group to support cyber activities and launder the stolen proceeds of hacks against cryptocurrency businesses. Today’s designation of Tornado Cash is a watershed moment, not only for the crypto industry, but for financial sanctions overall as it targets a widely used mixing service, potentially answering the question of whether or not mixing services writ large will be allowed to operate as long as they remain susceptible to illicit actors.

In the hours following the designation, join this special edition of TRM Talks to hear from TRM's team of experts on the significance of Tornado Cash as a target of sanctions, how these events fit into wider efforts to combat the use of crypto for money laundering and illicit activity, and what these sanctions mean for crypto businesses and other regulated institutions on-the-ground who need to respond to incorporate these these updates into their operations in real time.

Aaron Arnold

Senior Associate Fellow with the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies, RUSI

Dr. Aaron Arnold is a Senior Associate Fellow with the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at RUSI, where his work focuses on sanctions and proliferation financing. Prior to joining RUSI, Aaron served as the finance and economics expert on the UN Panel of Experts for DPRK sanctions, where he monitored global sanctions implementation and investigated instances of sanctions violations. Before joining the Panel of Experts, Aaron was a fellow with the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, where he published work on the extraterritorial use of sanctions and the efficacy of WMD trade controls. He also previously worked as a counter-proliferation subject matter expert in the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Justice Department, where he specialized in WMD counter-proliferation investigations and operations.

Tom Armstrong

Compliance Advisor at TRM Labs

Prior to joining TRM Labs, Tom served as the Head of Financial Crime Compliance Digital Assets at Goldman Sachs. In this capacity, he led the strategic efforts to build the bank’s first dedicated financial crime compliance team covering blockchain-based assets, and served in an advisory capacity across a number of business verticals including investment banking, private wealth, asset management, global markets and additional digital asset projects.

With a decade of experience working on anti-money laundering and related compliance issues at Goldman Sachs, he also led Transaction Surveillance teams, and served as Head of the Financial
Intelligence Unit and Forensics Group teams.

Mario Cosby

Sanctions Specialist, TRM Labs

Mario Cosby is a Blockchain Intelligence Expert at TRM Labs and focuses on blockchain-related crimes involving terrorism and sanctions. Mario has over a decade of investigative experience serving in multiple capacities within the public and private sector. His experience includes involvement with United States Army intelligence operations combating terrorism, providing analytical support to FBI financial investigations and establishing a Financial Intelligence Unit at Meta.

Rita Martin

Global Investigations

As a member of the Global Investigations Team at TRM Labs, Rita spends her days conducting on-chain investigations into hacks, fraud, and trans-national organized cybercriminals. She is also passionate about training, particularly for law enforcement, when it comes to investigations involving cryptocurrencies and defi. She helps build TRM Academy, the self-serve learning platform for all things cryptocurrency risk management serving the public sector, compliance professionals, and crypto businesses alike.

As a former Special Agent with the U. S. Secret Service, Rita was the lead case agent responsible for several complex financially motivated cybercrime investigations. Her former casework targeted high-risk cryptocurrency exchanges and other infrastructure that allowed top-tier cybercriminals to operate with impunity and anonymity. As a trained network intrusion responder, Ms. Martin also brings expertise of real-time event analysis, malware typing, and web application security to the team at TRM.

Ari Redbord (moderator)

Head of Legal and Government Affairs, TRM Labs

Ari Redbord is Head of Legal and Government Affairs at TRM Labs, a blockchain analytics company. Prior to joining TRM Labs, he served as a Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary and the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the United States Department of Treasury. In this capacity, he worked with teams from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and other Treasury and interagency components on issues related to sanctions, the Bank Secrecy Act, cryptocurrency, and anti-money laundering strategies.

Previously, Mr. Redbord served as a Senior Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, where he investigated and prosecuted cases related to cryptocurrency, terrorist financing, sanctions evasion, export control, child exploitation and human trafficking. He has received numerous awards from FinCEN, the FBI, and the United States Attorney's Office, including the Attorney General's Award for leading an interagency task force dedicated to prosecuting those who abuse and exploit children.