The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is resisting the attempts of a Tornado Cash founder to have his charges dismissed. Tornado Cash is a coin mixing system based on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain that enables users to hide their digital assets. In 2022, the U.S. imposed sanctions on the controversial project for national security reasons. Roman Storm, one of the founders, was arrested last year and accused of laundering $1 billion in illicit proceeds, including hundreds of millions for the Lazarus Group, a North Korean cybercriminal organization under sanctions.
Storm’s lawyers recently requested that the case against him be dropped, arguing that he merely developed decentralized software solutions to provide financial privacy to legitimate cryptocurrency users, which they claim is not a crime from a technical standpoint. However, in a new filing, the DOJ argues that Storm’s motions are an attempt to divert attention and should be dismissed entirely.
“The indictment alleges, and the government expects to prove at trial, that the Tornado Cash service was a seamless and fully integrated service that facilitated anonymous transactions for its customers. It included a website, a user interface (UI), specific smart contracts that held customer deposits (Tornado Cash pools), other crucial smart contracts, and a relayer network that processed withdrawals for fees,” the DOJ stated.
Storm’s motion to dismiss disputes these factual allegations, stating that “Tornado Cash” only refers to the Tornado Cash pools and nothing else.
Earlier this month, the Blockchain Association, a prominent crypto advocacy group, filed an amicus brief in support of Storm, arguing that the government’s prosecution had a significant flaw. According to the group, the indictment lacks substance regarding the government’s money-transmitter charges because it fails to provide evidence of the defendants’ or Tornado Cash’s control over the funds in question.
In addition to Storm, Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Semenov has also been charged by the DOJ, but he remains at large. Moreover, Alexey Pertsev, one of the project’s developers, was arrested in the Netherlands in 2022 on money laundering charges.
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