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- Roman Storm’s neutral correct team has acknowledged they are desirous about submitting for a mistrial
- A authorities glimpse claimed rip-off proceeds had been laundered via Tornado Money
- Honest researchers hold disputed that converse, citing an absence of on-chain proof
Roman Storm’s defense attorneys hold raised the replacement of a mistrial after discovering that funds acknowledged to were laundered via Tornado Money doubtlessly weren’t. A glimpse within the trial, Hanfeng Lin, testified that the blockchain restoration firm Payback had traced her stolen resources to the mixer, but Storm’s team challenged the validity of that converse, citing their very enjoy investigation and the work of properly-identified blockchain analysts who realized no such connection on-chain. Which signifies that, they are desirous about pushing for a mistrial, even supposing no option has been taken but.
Blockchain Analysts Followed “Scurry Path”
Hanfeng Lin testified on Tuesday, all the blueprint via the 2nd week of the Tornado Money trial in federal court docket in Manhattan. Her testimony marked the prosecution’s first presentation of a sufferer of a pig-butchering crypto rip-off, detailing how she lost roughly $190,000–$250,000 and believed a bit of these funds passed via Tornado Money. On the opposite hand, crypto researchers ZachXBT and Taylor Monahan publicly reviewed the transactions linked to Lin’s case and concluded there become no proof the funds ever passed via Tornado Money:
At closing received time to envision the txns you shared and I agree.
Idk how you mess up the tracing that inferior as a firm to where you couldn’t properly notice instantaneous alternate deposits 1 hop from a theft address after which notice subsequent txns down the ugly direction to Tornado…
It’s…
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) July 21, 2025
Defense attorneys equipped these findings in court docket and argued that allowing such unsupported testimony can also deceive the jury and undermine the equity of the trial. They hold now not but submitted a formal mistrial glide but told the judge they are actively desirous about it.
Prosecution Promises Contemporary Proof
The prosecution, led by Assistant U.S. Lawyer Thane Rehn, has pushed support, promising to raise forward new proof and witnesses to increase their model of occasions, with Rehn adding that the authorities will introduce additional on-chain data exhibiting the rip-off funds had been certainly mixed the utilization of Tornado Money. Monahan added that “the enlighten will absolutely need to indicate that their investigators did now not wholly depend upon a single inferior-faith letter from an identified rip-off crypto restoration service,” even supposing he doubted whether or now not any federal agent is “arresting to switch on the stand and testify they verified the mark.”
The consequence of this evidentiary dispute can also very properly be pivotal in a case that has large implications for beginning-source developers and crypto privacy instruments; Roman Storm is charged with conspiracy to violate sanctions and working an unlicensed money transmitter, and the trial is being carefully watched by both the crypto neighborhood and digital rights advocates.
