In recent years, several high-profile cases in the Netherlands have raised questions about whether justice is equally applied to all. From cryptocurrency developers to board members of banks and payment companies, these cases illustrate a troubling trend: wealth and influence may afford certain protections, leading many to wonder if the rich and powerful, especially in the financial industry, can escape the total weight of the law. This article explores three cases involving Alexey Pertsev and Tornado Cash, Payvision BV, and ING Bank, each shedding light on how certain actors appear shielded from harsher penalties despite extensive evidence of wrongdoing.
The Tornado Cash Case: Money Laundering in the Age of Cryptocurrency
On May 14, 2024, Alexey Pertsev, a 31-year-old Russian software developer for the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash, was sentenced to 64 months in prison by the court in ’s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. The case revolved around money laundering charges, with Dutch prosecutors alleging that Pertsev laundered over $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency through Tornado Cash from July 2019 to August 2022. Tornado Cash is a decentralized platform that mixes cryptocurrencies to obscure their origins, making it challenging to trace transactions back to their sources.
The prosecution argued that it was convincingly proven that Pertsev, along with others, engaged in habitual money laundering. The court concluded that Alexey Pertsev was guilty of:
° Conditional Intent in Money Laundering
The court found Pertsev guilty of “conditional intent” in laundering funds, meaning he knowingly allowed Tornado Cash to be used for money laundering, even if he did not directly facilitate the transactions. By accepting the likelihood that Ether from criminal sources would be deposited into Tornado Cash, Pertsev and his co-conspirators engaged in laundering by concealing the origin, movement, and rightful ownership of these funds.
The court ruled that Pertsev must have been aware of Tornado Cash’s misuse,
- as news articles linking the platform to criminal activities were widespread.
- It is common knowledge that mixing services can be used to launder money.
- Messages on Pertsev’s phone also showed law enforcement and private entities requesting Tornado Cash’s assistance in solving cases involving stolen Ether.
° Intentional Design and Development
Despite knowing about Tornado Cash’s widespread misuse, Pertsev continued to design and offer the service to the public without implementing compliance measures. His decisions reinforced Tornado Cash’s ability to conceal users’ identities, even as reports linked it to illegal activities. This disregard for the platform’s misuse became a core element of the court’s verdict.
° Co-Perpetration of Habitual Money Laundering
The court established that “co-perpetration” of a criminal offense can be proven if there is sufficiently close and conscious cooperation in committing the crime. The court concluded that Pertsev and his co-perpetrators engaged in close and deliberate cooperation, evidenced by their joint actions. This collaboration spanned the indictment period, marking Pertsev and his partners as co-perpetrators in the money laundering activities.
° Habitual Offending with No Evidence of Direct Contact
While the court found clear evidence that Pertsev and his associates laundered Ether from 36 hacks over more than two years: it’s worth noting that no evidence indicated direct contact between Pertsev and the hackers. The habitual nature of these activities (more than two years) led the court to define Pertsev’s actions as habitual money laundering through co-perpetration.
In its lengthy announcement the Dutch prosecutors emphasized the importance of acting severly: The suspect created a shortcut for financing crime and terrorism with Tornado Cash. Under the guise of an ideology, he disregarded laws and regulations and imagined himself untouchable. He also behaved conveniently when requests for help from victims of hacks or investigative agencies came to him, simply stating that he could do nothing for them. With blinders on, he continued to develop and operate Tornado Cash. The defendant chose to look away from the abuse and took no responsibility for it.
The court, like the prosecutor, found a prison sentence of 5 years and 4 months appropriate. In addition, the young Russian gux did not get back his confiscated Porsche and some 1.9 million euros worth of cryptocurrency, among other things.
Many people, especially in the cryptocurrency industry, were surprised by the severe sentencing of the young Russian software developer. Since then, they have been impressed by the strict AML (Anti-Money Laundering) enforcement actions taken by the Dutch authorities. However, this perception may not align with reality.
Payvision and Pay-to-Play Justice?
On April 5, 2024, the Dutch Prosecutor announced that criminal charges against Payvision BV board members Rudolf Booker and Cheng Liem Li were settled out of court. The Dutch Prosecutor found that Booker and Li had systematically violated European Know-Your-Customer (KYC) regulations from 2016 to April 2020. With Booker and Cheng Liem Li accepting fines totaling €330,000, the Dutch prosecutor decided to dismiss the case and not holding Booker and Cheng Liem responsible in court.
Payvision BV, a Dutch payment payment processor, founded in 2002 by Booker, facilitated payments for merchants involved in pornography, cannabis, gaming, and fraudulent binary options until its closure in 2021. Booker, who comes from a wealthy Dutch family with ties to prominent real estate investments, has onboarded and processed transactions for high-risk merchants since at least 2012 in billions of transactions using ING bank accounts. For only one criminal organization court documents evidenced that Payvision processed about 150 mio € stolen money. Payvision worked for many different criminal organizations during the years.
In early 2018, ING NL – one of the biggest bank in the Netherlands – acquired Payvision BV for €360 million. The acquisition was managed by then-CEO Ralph Hamers, with Steven van Rijswijk (now CEO) overseeing the risk management of the ING group. Soon after, Payvision’s long-term involvement in major cybercriminal schemes defrauding tens of thousands across Europe became public. Criminal court documents from Austria and Germany evidenced a close friendship (spending vacation together, sharing expensive hobbies,..) between Booker and Uwe Lenhoff, a notorious scammer, from 2016 until early 2019.
Despite European regulatory warnings about fraud linked to merchants onboarded by Payvision BV since 2012, and hundreds of fraud complaints from victims received by Payvision, as well as a documented personal close relationship between Uwe LENHOFF and some other big guys in the fraud industry and Rudolf Booker, the Dutch Prosecutor deciding against assuming that Booker and Cheng Liem Li had any common knowledge, conditional intent, habitual money laundering and above all no co-perpetration with the scammers.
"As no Know-Your-Customer was done, Booker did not know that he processed fraud money''.
In June 2024, the European Funds Recovery Initiative (EFRI), representing the claims of hundreds of Payvision´s victims, requested access to Payvision’s criminal case file and further investigation into the prosecution’s decision. We were denied access and got the following explanations from the Dutch prosecutor in charge:
Payvision is now no longer licensed as a payment service provider and will be dissolved. This makes a prosecution of Payvision no longer opportune in order to enforce a better compliance policy within Payvision. With the OM penalties against two former directors of Payvision and a press release, OM has publicly established that there was a structural violation of the Wwft and held two natural persons responsible for this at board level. In the OM’s opinion, this represents a sufficient degree of norm confirmation within an acceptable period of time.
The criminal investigation did not reveal that there was conscious close cooperation between Payvision and/or one or more of its directors and Messrs. Barak and Lenhoff for the purpose of inducing investors to surrender any asset.
Neither the Austrian nor the German prosecutor of the scammers Payvision served, were contacted by the Dutch prosecutor for more information. Neither was the FIOD interested in getting in contact with EFRI for more information on chargeback and fraud complaints made, although we sent them a first draft of a criminal complaint with extensive information about the close contact between Payvision/Booker and the scammers in 2019. It is not without some irony that the prosecutor in charge for the Payvision BV case has been by now promoted to the EPPO (European Public Prosecutor´s Office ), chasing international corruption.
Settling Rather Than Prosecuting
The Dutch Prosecutor’s decision to settle the case, despite significant evidence linking Payvision to cybercriminal activities, has raised concerns. Critics argue that Payvision BV`s and Booker’s connections and resources allowed them to escape more severe repercussions, prompting questions about the Dutch justice system’s treatment of rich guys and powerful financial entities.
The ING Case: Billions Laundered, No Accountability
On September 8, 2018, a settlement between the Dutch Prosecution Office and ING NV ended a lengthy money laundering investigation into one of the biggest European bank. The prosecution determined that from 2010 to 2016, ING NL was guilty of significant AML/CFT (anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing) violations, amounting to billions of euros laundered. ING agreed to a total fine of €775 million but avoided individual prosecution of executives.
Calls for Accountability
Critics, including Pieter Lakeman, director of the SOBI Foundation,a Dutch organization dedicated to investigating and addressing corporate misconduct, argued that former ING CEO Ralph Hamers should face trial. According to SOBI, ING’s violations prioritized commercial objectives over regulatory compliance, resulting in profits at the expense of societal harm. Lakeman argued that the settlement allowed executives to “buy their freedom at the company’s expense,” creating dangerous precedents.
In 2018, SOBI launched an Article 12sv procedure, seeking Hamers’ prosecution. Although the Hague Court of Appeal ordered Hamers’ prosecution in December 2020, the Dutch Prosecution Office delayed further action. Recently, in October 2024, SOBI once again approached the civil court to expedite the criminal proceedings. However, the prosecutor’s office argued that it retains discretion and may decide against further prosecution.
Hamers’ attorney claimed that a criminal trial would only lead to a “show trial” with a predictable outcome, asserting that prosecuting executives may have unintended consequences, like discouraging other executives and harming the Netherlands’ economic standing.
Journalist Eric Smit of Follow the Money published recently a great summary about the Hamers case
De berechting van oud-ING-topman Ralph Hamers is goed voor economie en rechtsstaat
and wrote that political interference in large bank cases is an “open secret” in the Netherlands. He described some examples.
So it is no surprise that Booker and Hamers are still on the streets and continuing with their activities.
Summary: Unequal Justice for Different Classes
These above cases reveal a concerning pattern in the Netherlands, where wealthy and powerful figures evade full accountability while others face the full consequences of the law. As Pieter Lakeman’s attorney aptly cited from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Specially the fact that Payvision was in business with the scammers for almost a decade and with personal relationship should for sure have resulted in a court case for Rudolf Booker, but the Dutch prosecution office evidently decided against holding Booker responsible. Up to the end of this year the Dutch prosecuting office will decide about bringing Hamers to court to hold him responsible we only can recommend them to do a sage decision.
With the Netherlands being a narco-state as termed by Pieter de Vries, a renowned Dutch investigative journalist, who was fatally shot on July 6, 2021, in Amsterdam, it should be evident, especially to the Dutch prosecuting office, how vital strict AML enforcement is to curb and tackle crime. But evidently, no one cares.
Disparities in legal treatment damage public trust in democratic institutions, financial systems, and the rule of law. By seemingly protecting powerful actors in financial services, the Dutch legal system risks creating a society where financial and corporate misconduct goes unpunished, leading to a more significant erosion of trust and stability.
