Storm Novel

Storm Novel

Biography

2023: Arrest in $1 billion hacker money laundering case

On September 6, 2023, Roman Storm, co-founder of the fully decentralized open-source cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, pleaded not guilty to laundering approximately $1 billion in hacker money.

USA Storm acted in the interests of a cybercriminal group linked to the government, according to federal court charges. North Korea The man was arrested on August 23, 2023 and released on bail of $2 million, secured by his home in the state. Washington Storm's lawyer Brian Klein says the court made incorrect conclusions about the guilt of his ward.

The US Treasury Department banned Tornado Cash in November 2022, saying that the North Korean group Lazarus, which is also under US sanctions, used this cryptomixer in April and May 2022 to "launder hundreds of millions of dollars received from hacker attacks." The service allows you to mix "dirty" cryptocurrency assets with others in order to hide the path to the original source of funds. The American authorities say that such a process helps cryptocurrency owners hide their identity and income obtained illegally.

In August 2022 Netherlands , the alleged developer of Tornado Cash, citizen Russia Alexei Pertsev, was arrested in. He was detained on Amsterdam suspicion of "involvement in concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering by mixing cryptocurrencies through the decentralized Ethereum Tornado Cash mixing service." And in August 2023, the founders of the platform, Roman Semenov and Roman Storm, were accused of laundering $1 billion. At the same time, Semenov was charged in absentia - he remains at large.^[1]

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