On July 3, 2025, the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit agreed to finish an attraction that crypto advocacy group Coin Middle made to OFAC relating to the Ethereum-based mixing service Twister Money.
This choice by the courtroom occurred roughly two and a half months after the U.S. Treasury Division eliminated Twister Money from its OFAC Sanctions listing after having saved it on the listing for over three years.
The dismissal of this case formally ends Coin Middle’s difficult OFAC’s choice to incorporate Twister Money on its sanctions listing.
Peter Van Valkenburgh, govt director at Coin Middle commented on X earlier at this time that the federal government didn’t wish to proceed to defend an interpretation of sanctions legal guidelines that appeared too broad.
This attraction being dropped comes within the wake of a memo from the U.S. Deputy Legal professional Basic Todd Blanche during which he said that the U.S. Division of Justice will now not goal crypto know-how like mixers.
Twister Money Builders Nonetheless On Trial
Even if this attraction has been dropped and Twister Money is now not on the OFAC sanctions listing, the creators of the know-how are nonetheless on going through felony 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 present 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 below the Financial institution Secrecy Act (BSA) as a result of the know-how doesn’t take management of consumer funds (i.e., non-public keys). The courtroom denied the movement, although, stating that the BSA’s scope doesn’t require that the know-how take management of consumer 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 giant 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.
