- Judge allows crypto kidnapping references in Roman Storm trial.
- She's doubtful there were any major incidents before Storm was indicted.
- There were more than 137 crypto extortion incidents before August 8, 2022.
Did Roman Storm want to protect crypto users from kidnapping and extortion in his development of Tornado Cash?
That’s the question set to play a key role in the developer’s defence as his trial enters its second week.
Crypto extortion incidents are where criminals use the visible onchain data to identify targets with large stashes of crypto, kidnapping, torturing, or blackmailing victims and their families into giving up their assets.
Tornado Cash breaks the line of traceability between crypto transactions, and can help users keep how much crypto they own private. It’s also popular among cybercriminals, who have previously used the protocol to launder stolen crypto.
On Friday, Judge Katherine Polk Failla said extortion incidents could be referenced in the trial to help explain Storm’s state of mind when building Tornado Cash, as long as they predate the developer’s August 8, 2022 indictment, and were so widely publicised that he, or someone in his position in the crypto community, would have known about them.
Failla said she doubted any such incidents existed.
“I did a quick Google search on cryptocurrency kidnapping events, and the only ones that I saw — it was a very quick search — took place in 2025,” she said.
Yet there were in fact dozens of crypto kidnapping incidents that fit the parameters put forth by the judge.
A list compiled by Bitcoin developer Jameson Lopp, himself a victim of extortion, puts the number of incidents between 2014 and August 8, 2022, at over 137.
Referencing crypto extortion incidents will help Storm’s lawyers convince the jury that he did not intend to break the law in building Tornado Cash, despite the protocol’s use by cybercriminals in the laundering of billions of dollars worth of stolen crypto.
Crypto security firm Chainalysis predicts 2025 will be the worst year for physical attacks against crypto founders and investors on record.
Crypto extortion
The first widely-reported incident of crypto extortion occurred in 2014, and targeted the family of Hal Finney, a renowned Bitcoin developer and cryptographer who passed away in 2014 after a five-year battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
During the final years of Finney’s life, an unknown extortionist repeatedly demanded that his wife, Fran Finney, pay them 1,000 Bitcoin — worth more than $400,000 at the time. FBI agents working the case believed that Fran was just one of several people extorted in this way by the same extortionist, according to Wired.
The attempted extortion of Finney’s family was a sign of things to come.
Over the next several years, the number of similar extortion cases increased and the tactics used by perpetrators escalated.
In 2016, kidnappers targeted Lithuanian crypto firm executive Tadas Kasputis, and attempted to extort him for $104,000 worth of Bitcoin. In 2017, the wife of a Brazilian crypto executive was kidnapped, with the perpetrators demanding a $20 million ransom. In 2018, a Ukrainian Bitcoin miner was kidnapped and ransomed for $50,000.
Several more widely reported incidents involved home invasions, torture, and in at least five incidents, murder.
Storm’s lawyers could decide to reference these, or dozens of other extortion cases, to help jurors understand Storm’s motivation for developing Tornado Cash.
However, they will need to choose which cases to highlight carefully. It’s not always clear whether an extortion victim was targeted due to onchain blockchain records showing their crypto wealth, or other factors.
For example, if a victim worked as an executive at a crypto company, attackers may have assumed they held lots of crypto for that reason alone.
Additionally, many early kidnapping cases involve Bitcoin, as it is the most popular and valuable cryptocurrency.
Tornado Cash isn’t compatible with Bitcoin, and instead works on Ethereum and several other Ethereum-compatible blockchains. Even so, as Ethereum’s price has increased, the number of attackers extorting and kidnapping victims over their Ethereum holdings is growing.
Storm’s trial is expected to last at least another three weeks.
Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.
