Prosecutors invoke a $250 Bitcoin Fog sting to defend trying Roman Storm in Manhattan

Tornado Cash and Bitcoin Fog pool users' crypto to break the on-chain link between where funds come from and where they go ^[1]. The laundering-count argument depends on that pooling. Prosecutors argued that even short-lived deposits help a mixer, because each one enlarges the pool of transactions used to obscure the movement of funds ^[7]. They said the Bitcoin Fog ruling "directly supports" their position ^[17].

The Constitution requires that a crime be tried where at least part of it took place ^[26]. Ahmed testified that he accessed the service from his apartment in Manhattan ^[5]. On the money-transmitting count, the letter's test is simpler still. It says the D.C. Circuit found venue proper solely because Bitcoin Fog had "served customers in the District," and that Ahmed's testimony shows Tornado Cash did the same in Manhattan ^[8].

Failla can go three ways. She could accept both arguments, keeping Storm's August 2025 conviction for conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business ^[10] and sending the deadlocked laundering count back to a Manhattan jury. She could split them, accepting the customer test for the transmitting count while finding that Ahmed's deposits did not further a laundering conspiracy. Storm's lawyer Brian Klein argued in April that Ahmed used Tornado Cash before committing his crime and "didn't actually use Tornado Cash for his hack" ^[22]. Or she could rule on intent, the ground Storm raised in September 2025 when he argued that prosecutors failed to prove he intended to help criminals misuse Tornado Cash ^[11]. An acquittal on that ground would make venue moot for the counts it covers.

In my view the split is the outcome the record supports best. The D.C. Circuit's laundering venue, in a ruling that affirmed a 150-month sentence, or 12.5 years ^[3][27], rested on an undercover agent's transactions from his Washington office ^[18]. Ahmed, on Klein's account, had not yet committed his crime when he used the service ^[22]. The government's reply is that any deposit, however brief, enlarges the pool ^[7]. If Failla adopts that pool reasoning for the laundering count, my view is wrong. Even the split would leave the transmitting count's venue resting on where the service had customers ^[8].

Failla has questioned the government's broadest theory once already. At the April hearing, prosecutor Ben Arad argued that once Tornado Cash was largely serving criminals, "even the legitimate transactions that went through Tornado Cash became illegitimate" ^[23]. "I'm concerned if that's your theory," Failla said ^[24]. Storm has now set Arad's argument beside FinCEN's withdrawal of its mixer rule ^[20].

The FinCEN notice also said illicit actors continue to use mixers and that the agency will keep monitoring them ^[13]. Storm posted the prosecutors' letter on Tuesday. "The DOJ is still coming after me with everything it has. They really want to see me convicted," he wrote ^[15].

Prosecutors had sought a retrial this month. It is scheduled for April 26, 2027 ^[16], about 20 months after the verdict ^[28], and goes ahead only if those charges remain pending ^[19]. Alexey Pertsev, Storm's collaborator on Tornado Cash, was found guilty of money laundering in the Netherlands in 2024; he is out on electronic monitoring while his appeal is pending ^[25].