NEW YORK – There is at least one fact that the defense and the accusation agree in the trial during criminal money laundering of the Romanesque STORM software developer: the product he helped to create and manage – an formerly popular cryptographic confidential tool called Tornado Cash – was exploited by hackers and cybercriptins to whiten their dirty money.
What the parties do not agree on, and the fundamental question at the heart of the Storm trial, is to know if Storm could prevent this behavior, if he knew what criminals used the tornado cash protocol and how and, above all, if he had to be criminally responsible for creating a tool that the bad actors used to cover their traces.
Storm, 36, was accused of conspiracy to commit money laundering, a conspiracy to violate American sanctions and conspiracy in view of a business transmission company without license – accusations which, in the event of a storm, are condemned, bear a maximum combined sentence of 45 years in prison. His trial started in Manhattan on Monday, and the opening arguments took place Tuesday afternoon after the lawyers selected a jury of 12 people to supervise the trial of three weeks.
Read more: Sitting jury for Tornado Cash Dev Roman Storm’s Trial
During the government’s opening declarations, prosecutor Kevin Mosley told the jury that Roman Storm “knew that his business turned dirty money” and that he had made millions of dollars. Mosley said the jury would see a photo of Storm carrying a t -shirt with a photo of a washing machine with the Tornado Cash logo on it – proof that he would have known Tornado Cash for.
Storm, said Mosley, made his eyes on the eyes on the pirates using his platform and ignored the pleadings of the victims of scams who contacted him, asking for help to recover their money. Although the prosecutors claim that Storm told the victims that he could not help them or ignore them entirely, Mosley said that Storm had maintained full control of the Tornado cash platform, even by leather “to make criminals even better to hide their money”.
Some Tornado Cash users included the infamous hacking organization sponsored by the state of North Korea, the Lazare group, which used Tornado Cash to laundering the product of its 2022 hack of the Ronin network of Axie Infinity. Mosley told the jury that, allegedly facilitating the money laundering of the Lazare group, the storm and its “co -conspirators” – the other promoters Alexey Péssev and Roman Semenov – violated the American sanctions against North Korea. Mosley said Storm knew that Tornado Cash helped North Korea to the sanctions skirt because he would have sent a Semenov and Pertsev text, “guys, we are finished” after the news of the Infinity hack broke.
Storm lawyers, of course, see the facts of the case very differently. In the opening declarations to the jury, Keri Axel, partner of Waymaker LLP, said that the text of Storm in Perzsev and Semenov after the Hack Axie Infinity had nothing to do with the sanctions, and everything to do with the impact of hacking on the reputation of Tornado Cash. The washing t-shirt, she said, was a “bad taste” joke.
Storm, said Axel, did not work with hackers or crooks and did not want them to use his product.
“These criminals, acting without any help from a novel [Storm]Lowering the tornado badly used, “said Axel.” You will not see any evidence that he has communicated with them or helped them, absolutely none. “The fact that the torade in cash was continuously exploited by bad actors” finally killed its dream “to create a confidentiality tool which was largely adopted and respected throughout the cryptographic community, said Axel.
It is private life – and legitimate need and desire – which is at the heart of Storm’s defense. His lawyers told the jury that their client, an American citizen born in Kazakhstan, who had learned to code while working on odd jobs as a bus boy and security guardian before jumping in the technology industry, was inspired to create a confidentiality tool after meeting the co -founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin, which Rockstar ”.
While anxel admitted that tornado tones were “poorly used” by bad players, she said they were a minority of the tool users – most of whom said that normal people used tornado money to preserve their privacy.
“It is not a crime to do something useful that is poorly used by bad people,” Axel said, comparing tornado money to a smartphone used to defraud people, or a hammer used to get into homes.
She explained to the jury that because the blockchain is public and easily available, any known portfolio address can be sought and its transactions (and the value of its content) may be seen by anyone. Axel explained that, in the cryptographic industry, the loss of confidentiality led to the recent series of abductions and attacks against individuals and high executives.
“How would you feel if someone took your bank account and published it on the internet?” Axel asked the jury. “You would feel exposed and probably dangerous.”
Axel told the jury that they would hear the testimony of a multitude of victims and pirates, none of whom could be directly linked to Roman Storm. The pirates, she said, testified only “in the hope of being able to obtain a leniency in their own criminal affairs” and that the storm did not have the power to help their victims.
First witness
After the conclusion of opening declarations, the government called its first witness, a Georgia resident born in Taiwan named Hanfeng Ling. Ms. Ling explained to the court how she was the victim of a pork butcher’s scam in the fall of 2021, which started with a WhatsApp message. The crook convinced Ling to transfer nearly $ 200,000 from his savings account to buy a crypto, then “invest” the crypto in a false exchange trading platform.
Ms. Ling’s testimony will continue on Wednesday. Nathan Rehn, the principal prosecutor, told court that he expects his testimony to be followed by four other witnesses to the government on Wednesday.
Most of the Storm trial should take place over three weeks, followed by the deliberation of the jury.
