Tornado Cash Co-Founder Roman Storm Released on Bail
Roman Storm, a co-founder of the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash, has been released on bail, his lawyer Brian Klein revealed Thursday in a post on X, formerly Twitter. The news came a day after Storm and another co-founder, Roman Semenov, were indicted on charges of conspiracy to launder money and violate sanctions laws while operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. According to the indictment, unsealed on Wednesday, the total includes hundreds of millions of dollars that allegedly went to the Lazarus Group.
Prosecutors accuse Storm and Semenov of creating Tornado Cash to allow cybercriminals to anonymize such transfers of crypto funds. While Storm, 34, had been arrested in Washington state, Semenov, a 35-year-old Russian national, remains at large. In his tweet, Klein said he was pleased with Storm’s release, but at the same time expressed his disappointment that his client had been charged for helping develop software. He warned that the prosecutors’ move will have “dangerous implications for all software developers.”. The U.S. sanctioned the Lazarus Group in 2019 and Tornado Cash in 2022. The Treasury Department sanctioned Semenov on Wednesday for “providing material support” to both.
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