The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is opposing the Tornado Cash founder’s efforts to have his charges dismissed.
Tornado Cash is an Ethereum (ETH)-based coin mixing system that allows users to hide their digital assets.
The US approved the controversial 2022 project for national security purposes. One of its founders, Roman Storm, was arrested last year and charged with laundering $1 billion in criminal proceeds, including hundreds of millions of dollars for the Lazarus Group, the sanctioned North Korean cybercrime group.
Earlier this month, Storm’s lawyers pushed for the case against him to be dismissed, arguing that the developer simply created decentralized software solutions to “provide financial privacy to legitimate cryptocurrency users,” which they said was not technically a crime .
In a new filing, the DOJ states that Storm’s motions “are an exercise in deception” and should be dismissed in their entirety.
“The indictment alleges, and the government expects to prove at trial, that the Tornado Cash service was ‘a seamless and fully integrated service that conducted anonymous transactions’ for its customers. Its features included a website and user interface (the “UI”), certain smart contracts containing mixed customer deposits (the “Tornado Cash Pools”), several other smart contracts that were key components of the Service, and a relayer network that processed withdrawals in exchange for fees. (ID card.).
Defendant’s motion to dismiss argues that these factual allegations are false and that ‘Tornado Cash’ refers only to the Tornado Cash pools and nothing else.”
Earlier this month, the Blockchain Association, a prominent crypto advocacy group, filed an amicus brief in support of Storm. The lobby group claimed the government’s prosecution had a “critical flaw.”
“The indictment’s portrayal of the government’s money transmitter allegations lacks substance, particularly because the indictment alleges no facts demonstrating Defendants’ or Tornado Cash’s control over the funds involved.”
The DOJ has also charged Roman Semenov, co-founder of Tornado Cash, although he remains at large.
In addition, one of the developers of the project, Alexey Pertsev, was arrested in the Netherlands in 2022 on charges of money laundering.
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