The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is pushing back against efforts to dismiss charges against Tornado Cash Co-founder, Roman Semenov,
In a recent court filing, prosecutors argued that Semenov should face charges related to conspiracy and money laundering because of Tornado Cash’s operations.
Tornado Cash has recently been accused of allowing criminal groups like North Korea’s Lazarus Group to secretly transfer illegally obtained cryptocurrency by hiding where the funds came from and went.
The DOJ disagrees with Semenov’s claim that he only wrote some code and had no control over how the mixer was used. In the filing, they accuse him and the other co-founder, Roman Storm, of intentionally creating systems to help criminals stay anonymous.
Prosecutors further criticized the founders for not properly blocking cryptocurrency addresses already under sanctions from using the mixer. They also argued that Tornado Cash operated as an unlicensed money transmitter business that conspired to enable money laundering.
However, Semenov’s lawyers tried to get the charges dismissed, arguing Tornado Cash did not operate as a financial service that took control of users’ funds under the legal definition. However, the DOJ filing states Semenov raised factual disputes that a jury should decide, not dismissed upfront.
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