Prosecutors Cite Bitcoin Fog Ruling Against Roman Storm's Venue Challenge

Federal prosecutors told Judge Katherine Polk Failla that an appeals ruling upholding Bitcoin Fog founder Roman Sterlingov's conviction supports trying Storm in Manhattan.

The letter argues a Tornado Cash user's transactions from his Manhattan apartment were enough to establish venue on two counts.

Storm contrasted the filing with FinCEN's withdrawal of a proposed reporting rule for crypto mixing, published Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors have told the judge overseeing Roman Storm's Tornado Cash case that an appeals court's decision upholding the conviction of Bitcoin Fog founder Roman Sterlingov supports their position that Storm was properly tried in New York.

Tornado Cash and Bitcoin Fog are coin mixers, software that pools users' crypto to break the on-chain link between where funds come from and where they go.

The letter, filed Monday with Judge Katherine Polk Failla in the Southern District of New York, cites the D.C. Circuit's September 25 ruling, which affirmed Sterlingov's conviction and 150-month sentence.

Storm's motion for acquittal, which challenges venue among other grounds, was argued in April and remains undecided. A Manhattan jury convicted Storm in August 2025 of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business and deadlocked on money laundering and sanctions charges.

The letter addresses the money laundering conspiracy count and the money transmitting count. The Constitution requires that a crime be tried where at least part of it took place.

In Sterlingov's case, the D.C. Circuit found venue proper in Washington based largely on a sting in which a special agent deposited about $250 worth of Bitcoin into Bitcoin Fog from D.C. and withdrew almost all of it the next day, according to the opinion.

Tornado Cash "in Manhattan"

Prosecutors argue the same reasoning applies to Shakeeb Ahmed, a Tornado Cash user who testified he accessed the service "in [his] apartment in Manhattan."

Storm's lawyers had argued that Ahmed's funds sat in the pools too briefly to further any conspiracy. The letter counters that his deposit remained for "a couple days," comparable to the agent's in the Bitcoin Fog case.

At the April hearing, Storm's lawyer Brian Klein argued that Ahmed used Tornado Cash before committing his crime and "didn't actually use Tornado Cash for his hack."

On the money transmitting count, the letter says the appeals court 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.

Storm posted the filing in a tweet on Tuesday. "The DOJ is still coming after me with everything it has. They really want to see me convicted," he wrote.

Storm also pointed to a Treasury notice filed Monday, the same day as the letter, in which FinCEN withdrew a 2023 proposal that would have required financial institutions to report transactions involving international crypto mixing. FinCEN said the decision was informed by commenters' concerns that its broad definition of mixing "could have a chilling effect on legitimate activity."

The notice also says illicit actors continue to use mixers and that FinCEN will keep monitoring them.

Storm contrasted that with an argument made by prosecutor Ben Arad at the April hearing: that once Tornado Cash was largely serving criminals, "even the legitimate transactions that went through Tornado Cash became illegitimate." Failla pressed him on the point, saying "I'm concerned if that's your theory."