Legal authorities in the Netherlands have rejected the appeal to free Alexei Pertsev, the main developer of the Tornado Cash protocol was arrested and in custody by Dutch authorities shortly after the US Treasury Department sanctioned the protocol along with 44 of its associated addresses.

The rejection of the appeal was criticized by Ksenia Malik, Alexei’s wife, who pointed out that the injustice was evident since the authorities did not even listen to the appeal of the conflicting developer. Citing her fears, Malik said authorities plan to auction off Alexei’s properties with plans to leave her with nothing.

Based on the current state of affairs, Alexei is likely to remain in custody until the end of November before the next hearing. Asked if Dutch officials can seize the personal property of an untried suspect, Malik said the current actions of prosecutors show that they can.

“At the moment only one car, but I think they can come and take something else at any time. I don’t feel safe,” she said. Prosecutors will sell “all of our legal property at auction, leaving me with nothing.”

The arrest of Alexei Pertsev has provoked many protests among crypto advocates, as the Tornado Cash sanction has also been condemned by a coalition of industry stakeholders. The defense is that Alexei should not be responsible for developing open source code, regardless of how people use it.

Tornado Cash is used as a cryptocurrency mixer that can be used to obfuscate the origin and destination of funds in an attempt to improve user privacy. While notable personalities like the co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin He said they have used the blending tool to protect their identities in the past.

However, the Treasury Department said the protocol has been used to launder up to $7 billion with some linked to North Korea’s hacking syndicate, Lazarus Group.

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