Prosecutors Say Roman Storm Knowingly Laundered $1 Billion for Hackers

In opening statements on July 15, U.S. prosecutors told a Manhattan federal court that Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm knowingly laundered cryptocurrency stolen by North Korean hackers. They detailed how hundreds of millions of dollars passed through Tornado Cash after major hacks, including $600 million from the 2022 Axie Infinity breach.

Prosecutors say Storm’s Tornado Cash platform mixed and laundered over $1 billion for cybercriminals, including North Korea’s state-sponsored Lazarus Group. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Mosley described Storm as the operator of a “washing machine for dirty money.”

Evidence includes internal messages between Storm and co-founders Roman Semenov and Alexey Pertsev expressing alarm, and a photo of Storm wearing a T-shirt with the Tornado Cash logo and a washing machine at a conference.

His defense maintains that the open-source privacy protocol had legitimate uses beyond his control. They say Storm lacked the ability to control how bad actors used the protocol. The defense objected twice during opening statements over hypothetical references to users’ physical safety, saying there is no evidence of a criminal agreement between Storm and hackers.

The proceedings are expected to last three weeks. A 12-member jury will weigh charges that Storm conspired to commit money laundering, violate U.S. sanctions, and operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. He faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted. 

Storm is a Kazakh-born software developer who worked various jobs before teaching himself to code. Tornado Cash launched in 2019 as an Ethereum-based mixer to enhance transaction privacy. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned it on August 8, 2022, after it was used to launder more than $7 billion in cryptocurrency.