Tornado Cash Trial Takes a Wild Turn

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Roman Storm’s defense team is like, “Hold up, let’s get a mistrial on the table!” 🤯 after a government witness linked to a romance scam (because, of course, there’s a romance scam involved 🙄) failed to bring the receipts for Tornado Cash.

According to Inner City Press, Storm’s lawyers were all, “Hey, Judge Failla, we’ve got a problem here!” 📣 on Monday. The issue arose after government witness Hanfeng Lin took the stand and claimed she’d lost a whopping $250,000 in a crypto scam, and some of her stolen funds had allegedly passed through Tornado Cash. Yeah, because that’s exactly how it works 💸.

Storm’s lawyer, David Patton, was all, “Uh, no, we didn’t find any evidence of that 🤷‍♂️,” and now they’re considering calling for a mistrial. A mistrial, for those who don’t know, is like a Get Out of Jail Free card 🏰, but only if you’re lucky.

Lin testified that she’d fallen victim to a pig butchering scam (ew, gross 🐖) in 2021 and had hired a crypto recovery service called Payback. She claimed Payback’s report said some of her funds had been routed through Tornado Cash, but the defense was like, “Hold on, that’s not what the on-chain evidence says 📊.”

The defense also grilled FBI agent Joseph DeCapua, who was supposed to be the expert, but it turned out he’d never even examined Lin’s transactions 🤔. Prosecutors, on the other hand, are bringing in IRS analyst Stephan George to allegedly prove that Lin’s funds did indeed pass through Tornado Cash. Because, you know, that’s all it takes – one expert to counter another 🤹‍♂️.

This first witness in Roman’s trial immediately caught my attention bc the victim was a classic Pig Butchering case.

The only issue is….uh…..those scammers don’t use Tornado Cash? And they never have?

So, like, wtf?

— Tay 💖 (@tayvano_) July 18, 2025

And, surprise surprise, independent blockchain researchers have also called Lin’s testimony into question 🚨. Taylor Monahan from MetaMask was like, “Uh, no, our analysis says otherwise 🤷‍♀️,” and self-proclaimed blockchain sleuth ZachXBT backed her up. They both pointed out that Payback’s tracing report didn’t match the on-chain data 📊.

Storm is facing some serious charges – conspiracy to commit money laundering, violating U.S. sanctions, and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business 🚔. The U.S. Department of Justice is claiming that Tornado Cash laundered over $1 billion, including funds from North Korea’s Lazarus Group (because, of course, North Korea is involved 🕵️‍♂️). Storm’s defense is maintaining that Tornado Cash is just a decentralized, non-custodial protocol that’s being unfairly targeted 🤖.

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2025-07-22 11:26