Roman Storm, the co-founder of the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash, was arrested on money-laundering and other charges on Aug. 23. However, his lawyer Brian Klein announced that Storm was released on bail soon after his detainment. Klein expressed his disappointment with the prosecutors for charging Storm simply for developing software, noting that this could have dangerous implications for all software developers.The U.S. Department of Justice charged Storm and fellow co-founder Roman Semenov with operating the Tornado Cash services and laundering more than $1 billion in criminal proceeds. They were also charged with conspiracy to commit sanctions violations and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.The arrest of Storm and Semenov comes roughly a year after the U.S. Treasury Department added Tornado Cash-related addresses to the list of Specially Designated Nationals of the Office of Foreign Asset Control. Another Tornado Cash developer, Alexey Pertsev, was arrested in the Netherlands and spent nine months in prison before being released in April 2023.Semenov remains at large and is also listed on the OFAC’s list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons. Storm’s lawyer Klein has not yet responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
| Information |
Details |
| Geography |
North America |
| Countries |
🇺🇸 🇳🇱 |
| Sentiment |
negative |
| Relevance Score |
8 |
| People |
Roman Storm, Brian Klein, Alexey Pertsev, Roman Semenov |
| Companies |
Tornado Cash, Office of Foreign Asset Control, United States Department of Justice, Treasury Department, Netherlands. |
| Currencies |
Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tornado Cash, USD, EUR |
| Securities |
None |
