- A district court in Manhattan convicted Tornado Cash founder Roman Storm with a guilty verdict over his involvement in money laundering activities.
- He could face up to five years of jail time for this specific verdict, but his prison term could stretch up to 45 years if found guilty on the other charges.
The Guilty Verdict on the Tornado Cash Founder
The US District Court for the Southern District of New York handed Roman Storm, founder of Tornado Cash, a guilty verdict in one of three charges. According to Matthew Russell Lee’s Inner City Press, the jury convicted him on the grounds of running an unlicensed money transmittal business concerning his role in the cryptocurrency transaction masking platform.
The verdict could land Storm with up to five years of jail time. The judge may reduce the maximum sentence if the court finds mitigating circumstances. The numbers don’t include the possible outcome of the other charges yet.
A “Hard-Fought Case”
Katherine Polk Failla, the presiding judge, commented that Storm faced a “hard-fought case.” Meanwhile, it took the jury four days of deliberation to determine the Tornado Cash creator’s fate.
However, the group faced a deadlock on the other charges, namely the defendant’s potential involvement in money laundering and conspiracy to violate North Korea sanctions.
Storm’s Money Laundering Activities and Links to Lazarus Group
Prosecutors alleged that Storm actively participated in laundering over $1 billion worth of digital assets through Tornado Cash. They tied most of these funds to the criminal activities committed by the Lazarus Group, an infamous hacker group linked to the rogue state of North Korea.
Additionally, prosecutors claimed that Storm actively promoted Tornado Cash to criminals while ignoring warnings from the authorities. They presented the court with screenshots containing marketing materials for the crypto mixer from the accused’s computer, asserting that he actively advertised his platform for money launderers. Victims of crypto thefts and scams also took the witness stand to recount their harrowing ordeals from hackers and scammers.
The Arguments of the Defense
On the other hand, the defense argued that Storm was livid when he found North Korean hackers used his crypto mixer. Lawyer Keri Curtis Axel raised in his opening statements that his client had nothing to do with hackers and scammers.
Furthermore, Axel pointed out that the defendant had no control over how other people would use the open-source code he wrote. The lawyer remarked that the government must prove that his client had any agreement with criminals or intended to use his creation for unlawful activities. Cointelegraph opined that the case raises concerns about the liability of developers in decentralized systems if criminal elements were to utilize their software.
If found guilty on all charges, the court may extend Storm’s prison term up to 45 years.
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