DOJ CITES A $250 BITCOIN FOG DEPOSIT — SAYS ONE MANHATTAN USER KEEPS ROMAN STORM’S CASE IN NEW YORK — THE PRIVACY TOOL IS WHEREVER A USER SITS

On October 5, 2026, federal prosecutors in Manhattan sent Judge Katherine Polk Failla a letter about venue in the Tornado Cash case against Roman Storm. Their new authority is United States v. Sterlingov, decided by the D.C. Circuit on September 25, 2026. Roman Sterlingov ran Bitcoin Fog, a bitcoin mixer. The court upheld his conviction and found that money moving through the mixer “furthered Bitcoin Fog’s ability to launder the funds of all users.”

What put that case in Washington was one undercover agent. The opinion says he “deposited approximately $250 worth of bitcoin, and then withdrew almost all of it the next day.” The DOJ letter adds a second deposit on November 18, 2019 of about 0.0117 bitcoin, which prosecutors price at about $97. The letter puts the total that flowed through Bitcoin Fog at about $400 million.

Prosecutors now map that onto Storm. Their witness, Shakeeb Ahmed, used Tornado Cash “in [his] apartment in Manhattan,” and his deposit sat in the pools for “a couple days.” The letter’s conclusion: “Sterlingov thus directly supports venue as to Count One.” Count One is the money laundering conspiracy charge the jury could not decide in August 2025. Storm was convicted on the unlicensed money transmitting conspiracy count. Cointelegraph and Decrypt report the retrial is set for April 26, 2027.

The Constitution says a trial happens where the crime was committed. This theory says a privacy tool is committed wherever one of its users happens to be, even a government agent with $250. Follow that line and anyone who writes privacy software for bitcoin can be charged in whatever district the state picks. Privacy that depends on the builder’s address is privacy on loan. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $83,001.