The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) confirms it will continue to prosecute Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash, on money laundering and sanctions evasion charges.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has just confirmed that it will bring Roman Storm, co-founder of the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash on Ethereum, to trial within the next less than two months. This decision comes amid significant debates about legal boundaries for security and privacy services in the cryptocurrency field.
"The government will prosecute Storm for intentionally conspiring to launder money, evade sanctions, and transport and transmit assets that the defendant knows are of criminal origin," the DOJ spokesperson responded to Decrypt.
According to court documents, federal prosecutors will argue that Storm conspired to launder money, operated a money transfer business without a license, and evaded U.S. sanctions. However, the DOJ also stated that it will drop part of the "operating an unlicensed money transfer business" charge – a federal law definition for entities not complying with money transfer business registration requirements in the U.S.
Conflict with FinCEN Guidelines and Community Reactions
The DOJ's decision has sparked reactions from industry experts. Peter Van Valkenburgh, Executive Director of Coin Center – a non-profit policy research and advocacy organization, pointed out that the money transfer service charges conflict with FinCEN's 2019 guidelines. According to these guidelines, "non-custodial" entities like Tornado Cash are not classified as money transmitters.
"Builders of neutral, non-custodial technology should not face criminal prosecution under baseless legal interpretations," said Amanda Tuminelli, Executive Director and Legal Counsel of the DeFi Education Fund.
The decision to maintain Storm's prosecution came after an internal DOJ memo (April 2025) indicated the agency would reduce prosecutions of mixing services, exchanges, and similar platforms, focusing only on "bad actors" using these platforms for money laundering. Privacy advocates had previously viewed this memo as a "relaxation" signal under President Donald Trump's administration.
Previously, Storm was scheduled for trial after Judge Katherine Polk Failla rejected his motion to dismiss the case in September 2024. In this motion, Storm argued that programming Tornado Cash was protected by the First Amendment (protecting free speech), but the court ruled that using computer code to assist money laundering is not within the protected scope.
Notably, in March 2025, the U.S. Treasury removed Tornado Cash from the OFAC sanctions list, following a Fifth Circuit Federal Appeals Court ruling that immutable smart contracts should not be classified as "assets". Previously, in 2022, OFAC had banned all U.S. citizens and organizations from using Tornado Cash, claiming the service had "laundered over $7 billion" since 2019.
In a related development, another Tornado Cash developer, Alexey Pertsev, was sentenced to 64 months in prison for money laundering in 2024. However, he was released in February 2025 pending appeal, with electronic monitoring conditions.
