We've been covering Riot Games' Valorant and its anti-cheat solution Vanguard since the dawn of the game's beta phase and plenty of the cheaters who were caught during that very beta phase have noticed that they're still very much banned post-release. Valorant's anti-cheat lead Paul Chamberlain explained, in a statement to IGN, that this isn't a mistake and that all cheating account bans are permanent.
"Most cheating account bans also come with a hardware ban, meaning we track their souls through time and space and ban them again when they try to re-enter the game with a fake mustache", Chamberlain stated. That said, however, specific "less egregious" ban cases can be reversed but Riot isn't planning to remove more hardware bans until its next "periodic review".