Tornado Cash Dev Roman Storm Moves to Dismiss Indictment Over Crypto-Laundering Allegations
Building Tornado Cash, a tool that can be used to obscure the origin and destination of cryptocurrency transfers, is not the same as laundering money, said a motion to dismiss the criminal indictment against developer Roman Storm. Storm and fellow developer Roman Semenov were indicted last summer on charges of conspiring to commit money laundering, conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitter and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (in other word, to violate U.S. sanctions). Storm was arrested and released on bail. The U.S. Department of Justice, alleged that Tornado Cash facilitated the laundering of over $1 billion by groups like North Koreas Lazarus. Tornado Cash has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department multiple times now. “Storm is a developer, and his only agreement, together with the members of his U.S-based company, was to build software solutions to provide financial privacy to legitimate cryptocurrency users,” Friday nights filing in the Southern District of New York said. “This is not a crime.” The motion defines Tornado Cash, describing it as a “set of non-custodial smart contracts in which users maintain complete ownership and control over their assets without the need to rely on any service provider or other intermediary,”