U.S. Prosecutor to Proceed With Charges Against Tornado Cash Co-Founder, Drops Some Charges

On May 16th, U.S. prosecutors will keep charging Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm. However, they have made a decision not to pursue some of the charges related to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. According to a court filing, the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York stated on Thursday that they will not proceed with a part of the charges against Storm until the trial on July 14th. But they indicated that they plan to pursue charges related to money laundering, some of which are associated with unlicensed money transmission, and one charge related to conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The U.S. Department of Justice stated that it intends to investigate cases involving harm to investors or the use of cryptocurrency in activities such as terrorism or hacking. This also means that the Department of Justice will no longer investigate cases involving market intermediaries. Instead, it will focus on investigating bad actors using the platform.