Because the trial of Twister Money developer Roman Storm continues into its second week, crypto forensics consultants have raised doubts over the credibility of proof introduced by the prosecution.
Impartial investigators decry clumsy tracing efforts, using a report from a dodgy forensics firm shut down by the feds, and soiled tips from the prosecution, in what many characterize as a battle for code as free speech
Requires mistrial after ‘bumbling’ efforts to hint funds
After Storm’s lawyer David Patton referred to as for a mistrial on the finish of Monday’s session, blockchain sleuths dug deeper into what the prosecution introduced because the laundering of rip-off sufferer’s funds via the Twister Money mixer.
The validity of testimony introduced by the federal government’s first witness, Katie Lin, was scrutinized over the weekend by MetaMask’s Taylor Monahan, who has spent years tracing funds from large-scale pig butchering schemes, such because the one Lin fell sufferer to.
Monahan’s evaluation was endorsed by fellow investigator ZachXBT.
This primary witness in Roman’s trial instantly caught my consideration bc the sufferer was a traditional Pig Butchering case.
The one concern is….uh…..these scammers do not use Twister Money? They usually by no means have?
So, like, wtf? https://t.co/27MlcXvc0z
— Tay 💖 (@tayvano_) July 18, 2025
Monahan recognized Lin’s transactions and traced them to an “instaswapper” service used to hop between blockchains.
She says it’s “fully inexcusable” to then declare to have continued tracing funds, as the continuing transactions (which later hyperlink to Twister Money) are merely the results of “an unknown input from another chain.”
Coinbase’s Conor Grogan, who traces forgotten funds in his free time, additionally analyzed the transactions.
Regardless of the transaction hash offered as proof being apparently unrelated to Lin’s case, he suspects that investigators combined up decentralized change swaps as transfers between people.
In accordance with a report from The Rage, even one of many prosecution’s personal blockchain consultants was unable to instantly join the sufferer’s transactions to Twister Money.
The prosecution claims that its “expert” witness, “IRS Agent George… will testify about the few short hops to Tornado Cash.”
Monahan is clearly assured in her tracing, and suspects that testimony “would be explicit perjury or career suicide.”
Dodgy crypto restoration firm shut down by feds
Additional doubts over the credibility of the prosecution’s proof base had been raised when X person William J. Jones appeared into Payback, the corporate Lin states she employed to hint the funds.
Jones famous that Payback LTD was one among three “cryptocurrency recovery services” whose web sites had been seized by the FBI final yr.
The press launch explains that these firms “often advertise strong success in recovering victim funds but have no track record in doing so.”
In charging “significant upfront fees and… a commission should funds be recovered” they’re successfully “further defrauding cryptocurrency scam victims.”
Prosecution accused of preventing soiled
Storm’s case has made the developer one thing of a martyr determine for privateness and open-source software program advocates who see the trial because the “most important case in crypto”.
To many, it looks like an pointless present of drive, particularly after the Fifth Circuit Courtroom of Appeals deemed that the Workplace of Overseas Belongings Management’s (OFAC) sanctions in opposition to Twister Money “overstepped,” and ordered their reversal in January.
The prosecution was accused of preventing soiled within the run-up to the trial, in search of to take away a few of the protection’s “expert” witnesses, claiming they might “waste time” and “confuse the jury.”
In the course of the first week, CoinDesk reporter Danny Nelson accused the federal government of “weaponizing” Telegram messages from a CoinDesk-Twister Money group chat, which had been misconstrued as proof of Twister Money builders discussing how one can launder stolen funds.
In yesterday’s session, FBI agent DeCapua dismissed using VPNs as one thing a “regular person” wouldn’t use.
Developer and Safety Alliance member Pascal Caversaccio warns in opposition to this type of characterization: “Treating privacy like a red flag is how we normalise surveillance.”
Subsequent, the prosecution plans to sneak in know-your-customer (KYC)-related testimony after each KYC and anti-money-laundering arguments had been banned in pretrial proceedings, in keeping with The Rage’s L0laL33tz.
Regardless of the continuing use of the mixer to launder stolen funds, even through the trial, Storm has continued to distance himself from such exercise, together with by returning a $24,000 donation from the eccentric Cork Protocol hacker again to the affected workforce.
