How Exactly did Prosecutors Trace Scam Proceeds to Tornado Cash?

The second week of the U.S. prosecution of Roman Storm kicked off what promises to be a major evidentiary dispute, which Storm’s defense today characterized as possibly meriting a mistrial. A mistrial would mean ending the current prosecution and possibly starting the trial again from scratch.

At issue was the testimony of Hanfeng “Katie” Lin, the victim of a pig-butchering scam who was the prosecution’s first witness. Pig-butchering refers to a type of long-term fraud in which victims are enticed with either romantic advances, the promise of big investment returns, or both, to convince them to hand over large sums. Lin testified that after she was defrauded, a purported fraud recovery service instructed her to contact Tornado Cash about recovering her funds.

But today, under cross-examination, one of the government’s blockchain tracing experts, FBI Special Agent Joseph DeCapua, said he had not been asked to analyze Lin’s transactions specifically. DeCapua testified for close to a full day, starting Thursday afternoon, detailing the flow of funds from a variety of major hacks and other crimes into Tornado Cash.

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