On July 3, 2025, the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit agreed to finish an enchantment that crypto advocacy group Coin Middle made to OFAC concerning the Ethereum-based mixing service Twister Money.
This determination by the courtroom occurred roughly two and a half months after the U.S. Treasury Division eliminated Twister Money from its OFAC Sanctions checklist after having stored it on the checklist for over three years.
The dismissal of this case formally ends Coin Middle’s difficult OFAC’s determination to incorporate Twister Money on its sanctions checklist.
Peter Van Valkenburgh, government director at Coin Middle commented on X earlier as we speak that the federal government didn’t wish to proceed to defend an interpretation of sanctions legal guidelines that appeared too broad.
This enchantment being dropped comes within the wake of a memo from the U.S. Deputy Legal professional Common Todd Blanche wherein he acknowledged that the U.S. Division of Justice will not goal crypto expertise like mixers.
Twister Money Builders Nonetheless On Trial
Even supposing this enchantment has been dropped and Twister Money is not on the OFAC sanctions checklist, the creators of the expertise are nonetheless on going through prison fees.
Twister Money co-founder and developer Roman Storm is scheduled to look in federal courtroom within the Southern District of New York on Monday, July 14, 2025.
Storm is at the moment going through cash laundering and sanctions violations fees, although, he has affirmed that he didn’t revenue from illicit transactions that have been made via the Twister Money service.
In September of this 12 months, Storm’s legal professionals submitted a movement to dismiss the costs, stating that Twister Money didn’t meet the definition of a cash transmitter beneath the Financial institution Secrecy Act (BSA) as a result of the expertise doesn’t take management of person funds (i.e., non-public keys). The courtroom denied the movement, although, stating that the BSA’s scope doesn’t require that the expertise take management of person funds.
Alexey Pertsev, one other Twister Money co-founder, was discovered responsible of cash laundering in The Netherlands in Might 2024 and was sentenced to 5 years in jail.
Roman Semenov, the third Twister Money co-founder, has been at massive and needed by the FBI since August 2023. The U.S. Division of Justice plans to convey Semenov up on the identical fees as Storm.
