A co-founder and developer of crypto mixer Twister Money has filed a movement to have the US authorities’s lawsuit in opposition to him dismissed.
Final 12 months, the U.S. Division of Justice (DOJ) charged Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, one other founder, with aiding the North Korean hacking group Lazarus in laundering illicit funds by means of the Twister Money mixing service.
Legal professionals for Storm say in a brand new court filing that the developer merely created decentralized software program options to “present monetary privateness to reliable cryptocurrency customers,” which isn’t against the law.
Storm’s attorneys say that the DOJ’s cash laundering costs are “fatally flawed” and ought to be dismissed pursuant to the Federal Rule of Prison Process.
“Cash laundering requires a ‘monetary transaction’ involving a ‘monetary establishment,’ but Twister Money’s publicly out there protocol and the allegedly associated software program companies, at the same time as wrongfully characterised within the Indictment, don’t conduct any monetary transactions nor do they qualify as monetary establishments as a matter of regulation. Furthermore, the Indictment fails to allege information that may present that Mr. Storm entered right into a conspiratorial settlement with any dangerous actor to launder cash, or that he had the precise intent to commit cash laundering (nor may it).
Certainly, the Indictment itself makes clear he couldn’t have had such an settlement or such an intent as a result of the Twister Money protocol was developed and have become immutable earlier than the alleged felony conduct that’s on the heart of the cash laundering rely even occurred.”
Storm was launched on bail final 12 months, and on the time, Legal professional Basic Merrick Garland said the builders deliberately helped criminals launder and conceal funds with Twister Money.
“As alleged within the indictment, the defendants operated a $1 billion scheme designed to assist different criminals launder and conceal funds utilizing cryptocurrency, together with by laundering a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars} on behalf of a state-sponsored North Korean cybercrime group sanctioned by the US authorities.
These costs ought to function one more warning to those that assume they’ll flip to cryptocurrency to hide their crimes and conceal their identities, together with cryptocurrency mixers: it doesn’t matter how refined your scheme is or what number of makes an attempt you may have made to anonymize your self, the DOJ will discover you and maintain you accountable in your crimes.”
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