{"id":9046,"date":"2025-07-22T19:29:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T16:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/22\/roman-storm-trial-rocked-by-tracing-errors-and-mistrial-calls\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T19:29:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T16:29:32","slug":"roman-storm-trial-rocked-by-tracing-errors-and-mistrial-calls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/22\/roman-storm-trial-rocked-by-tracing-errors-and-mistrial-calls\/","title":{"rendered":"Roman Storm trial rocked by tracing errors and mistrial calls"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As the trial of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm continues into its second week, crypto forensics experts have raised doubts over the credibility of evidence presented by the prosecution.<\/p>\n

Independent investigators decry clumsy tracing efforts, the use of a report from a dodgy forensics company shut down by the feds, and dirty tricks from the prosecution, in what many characterize as a battle for code as free speech<\/p>\n

Calls for mistrial after \u2018bumbling\u2019 efforts to trace funds<\/h2>\n

After Storm\u2019s lawyer David Patton called<\/a> for a mistrial at the end of Monday\u2019s session, blockchain sleuths dug deeper into what the prosecution presented as the laundering of scam victim\u2019s funds through the Tornado Cash mixer.<\/p>\n

The validity of testimony presented by the government\u2019s first witness, Katie Lin, was scrutinized<\/a> over the weekend by MetaMask\u2019s Taylor Monahan, who has spent years tracing funds from large-scale pig butchering schemes, such as the one Lin fell victim to.<\/p>\n

Monahan\u2019s analysis was endorsed<\/a> by fellow investigator ZachXBT<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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This first witness in Roman’s trial immediately caught my attention bc the victim was a classic Pig Butchering case.<\/p>\n

The only issue is\u2026.uh\u2026..those scammers don’t use Tornado Cash? And they never have?<\/p>\n

So, like, wtf? https:\/\/t.co\/27MlcXvc0z<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Tay \"\ud83d\udc96\" (@tayvano_) July 18, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Read more: Coinbase says staff leaked customer data, refuses to pay $20M ransom<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Monahan identified Lin\u2019s transactions and traced them to an \u201cinstaswapper\u201d service used to hop between blockchains.<\/p>\n

She says it\u2019s \u201cfully inexcusable\u201d to then claim to have continued tracing funds, as the ongoing transactions (which later link to Tornado Cash) are simply the result of \u201can unknown input from another chain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coinbase\u2019s Conor Grogan, who traces forgotten funds<\/a> in his free time, also analyzed<\/a> the transactions. <\/p>\n

Despite the transaction hash provided as evidence being apparently unrelated to Lin\u2019s case, he suspects<\/a> that investigators mixed up decentralized exchange swaps as transfers between individuals.<\/p>\n

According to a report<\/a> from The Rage, even one of the prosecution\u2019s own blockchain experts was unable to directly connect the victim\u2019s transactions to Tornado Cash.<\/p>\n

The prosecution claims<\/a> that its \u201cexpert\u201d witness, \u201cIRS Agent George\u2026 will testify about the few short hops to Tornado Cash.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monahan is clearly confident in her tracing, and suspects<\/a> that testimony \u201cwould be explicit perjury or career suicide<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dodgy crypto recovery company shut down by feds<\/h2>\n

Further doubts over the credibility of the prosecution\u2019s evidence base were raised when X user William J. Jones looked into<\/a> Payback, the company Lin states<\/a> she hired to trace the funds.<\/p>\n

Jones noted that Payback LTD was one of three \u201ccryptocurrency recovery services\u201d whose websites were seized<\/a> by the FBI last year.<\/p>\n

The press release explains that these companies \u201coften advertise strong success in recovering victim funds but have no track record in doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n

In charging \u201csignificant upfront fees and\u2026 a commission should funds be recovered\u201d they are effectively \u201cfurther defrauding cryptocurrency scam victims<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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USA V Storm update:<\/p>\n

After further digging, @payback_ltd<\/a> was the firm that provided the tracing report to the victim who\u2019s testimony stated that funds were sent to Tornado Cash. <\/p>\n

According to an FBI press release from September 2024, numerous domains were seized including a\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 William J. Jones (@W_J_Jones) July 21, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Prosecution accused of fighting dirty<\/h2>\n

Storm\u2019s case has made the developer something of a martyr figure for privacy and open-source software advocates who see<\/a> the trial as the \u201cmost important case in crypto\u201d.<\/p>\n

To many, it feels like an unnecessary show of force, especially after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals deemed<\/a> that the Office of Foreign Assets Control\u2019s\u00a0(OFAC) sanctions against Tornado Cash \u201coverstepped,\u201d and ordered their reversal in January.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The prosecution was accused of fighting dirty in the run-up to the trial, seeking<\/a> to remove some of the defense\u2019s \u201cexpert\u201d witnesses, claiming they would \u201cwaste time\u201d and \u201cconfuse the jury.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more: OFAC \u2018overstepped\u2019 on Tornado Cash sanctions, court orders reversal<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

During the first week, CoinDesk reporter Danny Nelson accused<\/a> the government of \u201cweaponizing\u201d Telegram messages from a CoinDesk-Tornado Cash group chat, which were misconstrued as evidence of Tornado Cash developers discussing how to launder stolen funds.<\/p>\n

In yesterday\u2019s session, FBI agent DeCapua dismissed<\/a> the use of VPNs as something a \u201cregular person\u201d wouldn\u2019t use.<\/p>\n

Developer and Security Alliance member Pascal Caversaccio warns<\/a> against this kind of characterization: \u201cTreating privacy like a red flag is how we normalise surveillance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next, the prosecution plans to sneak in know-your-customer (KYC)-related testimony after both KYC and anti-money-laundering arguments were banned in pretrial proceedings<\/strong>, according<\/a> to The Rage\u2019s L0laL33tz.<\/p>\n

Despite the ongoing<\/a> use of the mixer to launder stolen funds, even during the trial, Storm has continued to distance himself from such activity, including by returning<\/a> a $24,000 donation<\/a> from the eccentric<\/a> Cork Protocol hacker back to the affected team.<\/p>\n

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via\u00a0<\/em>Protos Leaks<\/em><\/a>. For more informed news, follow us on\u00a0X<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Bluesky<\/em><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/em>Google News<\/em><\/a>, or subscribe to our\u00a0<\/em>YouTube<\/em><\/a>\u00a0channel.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Roman Storm trial rocked by tracing errors and mistrial calls<\/a> appeared first on Protos<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the trial of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm continues into its second week, crypto forensics experts have raised doubts over the credibility of evidence presented by the prosecution. Independent investigators decry clumsy tracing efforts, the use of a report from a dodgy forensics company shut down by the feds, and dirty tricks from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-invest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}