Tornado Cash founders charged with laundering more than $1 billion, including millions for North Korea
The Tornado Cash website displayed on a laptop and smartphone screen arranged in London, U.K., on Tuesday, March 15, 2022.
Luke McGregor | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Two founders of Tornado Cash, the widely known Russian cryptocurrency mixer, have been charged with laundering more than $1 billion in criminal proceeds.
In a newly unsealed indictment, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov have both been accused of sanctions violations and laundering money through Tornado Cash, including hundreds of millions of dollars for the Lazarus Group, a sanctioned North Korean state-backed hacking group.
Charges in the indictment include conspiring to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.
Storm was arrested Wednesday in Washington state, according to a statement from the Justice Department, but Semenov, a Russian national, remains at large. The third co-founder, Alexey Pertsev, who is not mentioned in this action, faces trial in Amsterdam over his involvement with Tornado Cash.
“Roman Storm and Roman Semenov allegedly operated Tornado Cash and knowingly facilitated this money laundering,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, adding, “While publicly claiming to offer a technically sophisticated privacy service, Storm and Semenov in fact knew that they were helping hackers and fraudsters conceal the fruits of their crimes.”
The indictment also alleged that Storm and Semenov chose not to implement know your customer or anti-money laundering programs as required by law, and instead, advertised that the tumbler “provided untraceable and anonymous financial transactions.”
Brian Klein, Storm’s lawyer and a partner with Waymaker LLP, said in a statement, “We are incredibly disappointed that the prosecutors chose to charge Mr. Storm,” adding that they believe the prosecutors “did so based on a novel legal theory with dangerous implications for all software developers.”
Klein added, “Mr. Storm has been cooperating with the prosecutors’ investigation since last year and disputes that he engaged in any criminal conduct. There is a lot more to this story that will come out at trial.”
Wednesday’s joint action included the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation unit.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which previously banned Americans from using Tornado Cash in Aug. 2022, also sanctioned Semenov Wednesday.
Tornado Cash is used by some people as a legitimate way to protect their privacy in the still-nascent crypto market. When a buyer pays for something using a crypto wallet, the recipient of the transfer has access to the purchaser’s public crypto wallet, showing account details and history. Using a crypto mixing service like Tornado Cash masks those details by anonymizing the funds and concealing the identity of the buyer.
But the service was also used in a number of high-profile crypto heists in 2022, including the $615 million theft of tokens from Ronin, a network supporting the nonfungible token game Axie Infinity, and a $100 million attack on U.S. startup Harmony. Both were linked by security researchers with Lazarus Group.
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic found at least $1.5 billion in proceeds from crimes such as ransomware, hacks and fraud have been laundered through Tornado Cash, and that the entirety of the $100 million stolen from the Harmony bridge in June was laundered through the service.
The U.S. Treasury previously quoted a much higher figure for Tornado Cash and said it has been used to launder more than $7 billion worth of virtual currency since it launched in 2019. That figure refers to the total value of crypto assets that have been sent through Tornado Cash.
Some blockchain analytics tools have managed to “demix” crypto sent through Tornado to identify the source of the funds. Elliptic says it was able to trace crypto stolen from Harmony to several new ether wallets, for example.
In blacklisting Tornado Cash on Thursday, the Treasury Department said it was going after criminals, who used the service to launder more than $7 billion worth of virtual currency since it launched in 2019.
Environment
U.S. could reach deal with Canada that avoids oil and gas tariffs, energy secretary says
HOUSTON — The U.S. could reach an agreement with Canada that avoids tariffs on imports of oil, gas and other energy resources, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Monday.
Wright said such a scenario is “certainly is possible” but “it’s too early to say” in response to a question from CNBC during a press conference at the CERAWeek by S&P Global. The U.S. is in “active dialogue” with Canada and Mexico, the energy secretary said.
President Donald Trump has paused until April 2 tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports that are compliant with the agreement which governs trade in North America. Trump originally imposed broad 25% tariffs on goods from both countries as well as lesser 10% tariffs on energy imports from Canada.
It’s unclear, however, how much of the oil, gas and other energy that the U.S. imports from Canada is compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Wright declined to provide specifics when CNBC asked how much of those imports are USMCA compliant.
“I’m going to avoid the details for now,” Wright said. The energy secretary said, “We can get to no tariffs or very low tariffs but it’s got to be reciprocal” in an interview with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan.
Canada’s energy minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, warned last week that energy prices will rise in the U.S. if the tariffs on energy imports go into full effect.
“We will see higher gasoline prices as a function of energy, higher electricity prices from hydroelectricity from Canada, higher home heating prices associated with natural gas that comes from Canada and higher automobile prices,” Wilkinson told CNBC’s Megan Cassella in an interview.
The U.S. has been the largest producer of crude oil and natural gas in the world for years. But many refiners in the U.S. are dependent on heavy crude imported from Canada. The U.S. imported 6.6 million barrels of crude oil per day on average in December, more than 60% of which came from Canada, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Wright acknowledged that the tariffs are creating uncertainty in energy markets as negotiations continue.
“We’re in the middle of negotiations for where things are going to go with tariffs, so that feels frightening and gripping right now but this time will pass,” Wright said. “Deals will be made, we’ll get certainty and we’ll have a positive economic environment for Americans going forward.”
U.S. crude oil fell more than 1% Monday to close at $66.03 per barrel, while global benchmark Brent closed at $69.28 per barrel. Crude oil futures have pulled back substantially as Trump’s trade policy creates uncertainty and OPEC+ has confirmed that it plans to gradually bring back 2.2 million barrels per day of production beginning next month.
Apple is rolling out a notable update to Apple Maps EV Routing for Ford drivers. Starting today, Ford Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning drivers can use Apple Maps EV Routing via CarPlay to plan road trips that include Tesla Superchargers – or any station that uses the North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector.
As I’ve explained before, Ford began shipping adapters CCS to NACS adapters that allow Mach-E and Lightning drivers to charge at Tesla Superchargers last year. Until today, however, Apple Maps was unaware of this change. This meant Apple Maps EV Routing would only route Mach-E and Lightning drivers to CCS charging stations, even though a route with Tesla Superchargers might’ve been more efficient.
With today’s change, Apple Maps via CarPlay will now include NACS fast charging stations, such as compatible Tesla Superchargers, in recommended route planning recommendations.
In a blog post, Ford explains:
Apple Maps EV Routing in CarPlay allows drivers to input their route and can view the estimated battery level they will have when they get to a destination, as well as suggested charging stations along the way if charging is needed. Previously, Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning drivers would have to manually open another app, then enter a NACS fast charger as a destination to have it added to their route. Now, with the Apple Maps EV Routing and NACS fast charger integration, the experience will be more seamless.
How to Use Apple Maps EV Routing in CarPlay:
- Connect your Apple iPhone to CarPlay.
- Open Apple Maps, go to Settings, and confirm your preferred charging network(s) – make sure you select a NACS fast charging station, such as Tesla Supercharger. You only have to do this once.
- Enter a destination.
- Apple Maps will then calculate the estimated state of charge you will have when you get to a destination.
- If a charge is required, depending on the fastest route, it will automatically route you to a NACS fast charging station.*
This is a significant update to the Apple Maps EV Routing experience for Ford drivers. Next up on my wishlist is support for battery preconditioning when using Apple Maps EV Routing. Android Auto added this feature last October.
The new feature is available now to iPhone users running iOS 17 or later. No software update is required for your car.
Follow Chance: Threads, Bluesky, Instagram, and Mastodon.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
James Murdoch, a Tesla board member and friend of CEO Elon Musk, has confirmed that he sold about $13 million in stock today as the stock (TSLA) crashed.
There has been a lot of insider trading at Tesla lately, and by trading, we mean selling – cause no insider is ever buying at Tesla.
We recently reported on Kimball Musk, Elon’s brother, and Tesla’s Chief Financial Officer Taneja Vaibhav recently selling ahead of a recent drop in the company’s stock price.
Tesla’s chairwoman, Robyn Denholm, also sold $33 million worth of Tesla shares last week and over $100 million in the last 3 months.
Now, it’s James Murdoch’s turn. The Tesla board member just confirmed, through a required SEC filing, that he sold 54,776 Tesla shares for just over $13 million today:
He sold as Tesla’s stock crashed 15% today. It is now down more than 50% from its all-time high just a few months ago.
Murdoch was appointed to Tesla’s board in 2017.
He is better known as the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the former CEO of 21st Century Fox from 2015 to 2019.
Murdoch was one of the Tesla board directors who was forced to return almost $1 billion in cash and stock options to Tesla as part of a settlement for over-compensation.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla insiders are unloading, and those are just the ones we know about. Public companies only have to report insider trading for board directors and listed top executives.
For the latter, Tesla purposefully only lists 3 people: Elon, Vaibhav Taneja, Tesla’s CFO, and Tom Zhu, whose role at Tesla has bit quite fluid in recent years.
Therefore, we don’t know about the dozens of other top executives potentially selling their shares right now amid a giant correction.
It’s really suspicious because there are clear top leaders at Tesla who are often on Tesla’s earnings calls, and they are not even listed, like Lars Moravy, for example.
But it’s par for the course at Tesla, which has some of the worst corporate governance I have ever seen. It’s truly shameful.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports11 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway