Samourai Wallet Founders Face Federal Charges Over $2B in Transactions

NEW YORK – The U.S. Department of Justice on April 24, 2024, announced the arrests and unsealing of an indictment against Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, the founders and primary operators of the cryptocurrency service Samourai Wallet. According to the indictment filed in the Southern District of New York, Rodriguez and Hill are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.

Prosecutors allege that Samourai Wallet, since its creation around 2015, functioned as a premier service for laundering illicit funds, facilitating over $2 billion in unlawful transactions. The indictment claims the platform was instrumental in laundering more than $100 million in criminal proceeds derived from sources including the Silk Road and Hydra Market dark web marketplaces, as well as from various schemes targeting decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. "Samourai Wallet made profits by processing illicit transactions — it was a business model that flouted the law," stated IRS-CI Special Agent in Charge Thomas Fattorusso. The founders allegedly earned approximately $4.5 million in fees from their operations.

A "Haven for Criminals"

The DOJ alleges that Rodriguez and Hill intentionally designed and marketed Samourai Wallet to attract a criminal clientele. The indictment contains excerpts of founder communications and marketing materials that appear to explicitly court users wishing to evade law enforcement. For example, a post from Samourai’s official social media account, cited in the filing, allegedly stated that "financial surveillance" makes users feel "like criminals" and that Samourai was built to address this. The founders also allegedly instructed users on how to conduct transactions "from blacklisted BTC," and one founder is quoted in a private message saying, "at samourai we are 100% focused on the censorship resistance and black/grey market," according to the DOJ. This marketing strategy, prosecutors argue, demonstrates criminal intent.

Technical Features for Anonymity

At the heart of the government's case are two of Samourai's core features: "Whirlpool" and "Ricochet." Whirlpool is a transaction mixing service, or "tumbler," that allowed users to pool their cryptocurrency with others to break the on-chain link between their old and new coins, effectively masking the trail of funds. Ricochet created additional, unnecessary transactions—or "hops"—to further confuse blockchain analysis tools. The indictment asserts that by operating these centrally-managed services and collecting fees for them, the founders were operating a money transmitting business and were therefore required to register with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and implement an anti-money laundering (AML) program, which they failed to do.

Arrests and Seizures

The international law enforcement operation resulted in the arrest of Rodriguez, the CEO, in Harmony, Pennsylvania, and Hill, the Chief Technology Officer, in Portugal. The United States will seek Hill's extradition to stand trial in New York. Concurrently with the arrests, law enforcement executed a seizure warrant for Samourai's web domain and took control of its servers in Iceland. The Samourai Wallet app has also been removed from the Google Play Store in the United States. Visitors to Samourai's website are now met with a notice stating it has been seized by U.S. federal authorities.

Government's Stance on the Samourai Wallet Charges

The indictment for the **Samourai Wallet charges** is part of a broader crackdown by U.S. authorities on services that obscure cryptocurrency transaction flows. This action follows the template used against the developers of Tornado Cash, another mixer. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams emphasized the government's focus on intent: "Rodriguez and Hill allegedly knowingly facilitated the laundering of billions of dollars... and served as a haven for criminals." The prosecution's case hinges on proving that the defendants created and operated the service with the specific intent to facilitate illegal financial activity, thereby crossing the line from providing a privacy tool to conspiring in a criminal enterprise. The money laundering conspiracy charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison, while the unlicensed money transmitter charge carries a maximum of five years.

What This Means

This enforcement action reinforces the U.S. government's position that developers and operators of cryptocurrency privacy tools can be held criminally liable if their services are marketed to and used by criminals. For compliance officers and legal teams in the digital asset space, the case underscores the critical importance of AML compliance and avoiding business models that could be perceived as facilitating illicit finance. The outcome of the legal proceedings against the founders of Samourai Wallet, alongside the ongoing case against Tornado Cash developers, will have profound and lasting implications for the future of financial privacy, software development, and regulation within the global cryptocurrency ecosystem.

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