Roman Storm Guilty of Unlicensed Money Transmitting Conspiracy in Partial Verdict

NEW YORK — Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm has been found guilty of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, a Manhattan jury decided Wednesday.

The jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the remaining charges, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate international sanctions, despite four days of deliberations after the three-week trial. A sentencing date has not yet been set, and it is currently unclear whether prosecutors will elect to re-try Storm on the remaining charges. Prosecutors told the court on Wednesday afternoon that they will confer internally and decide.

Storm was arrested in 2023 and charged with helping hackers and other cyber criminals, including North Korea’s famed hacking squad, the Lazarus Group, launder more than $1 billion in dirty money through Tornado Cash, the crypto privacy tool he helped develop.

After the jury read the verdict, prosecutors moved for Storm, who is currently out on bail, to be remanded to prison to await sentencing, arguing that “he is from Russia” (Storm was born in Kazakhstan and is a U.S. citizen who has lived in Seattle, Washington for over a decade), “has advised people how to cheat the immigration system” and has the financial means to flee the country, according to reports from Inner City Press.

Storm’s lawyers pushed back, arguing that the developer is not a flight risk. Keri Axel, a partner at Waymaker and a lawyer for Storm told District Judge Katherine Polke Failla of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) that Storm surrendered his passport and has deep family ties — including joint custody of a five-year-old daughter in Washington state, where he lives, and extended family in Sacramento, California — to the United States.

Failla ultimately sided with Storm’s lawyers, arguing that she did not think Storm was a flight risk since he was only convicted on one charge.

“He may appeal, he has every incentive to stay and fight,” Failla said. “He is not a risk of flight, given the size of the bond. There is a lot of fighting left in this case before sentencing, and I think Mr. Storm will stay for it.”

The verdict in Storm’s case comes just a week after the developers of Samourai Wallet, a Bitcoin-focused privacy tool similar to Tornado Cash, pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. The developers, Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, changed their initial ‘not guilty’ pleas after reaching a deal with prosecutors that saw the heftier money laundering conspiracy charges dropped.