Two co-founders of the privacy-centric Samourai Wallet Cryptocurrency service are now facing time behind bars after admitting to their roles in a massive money laundering operation.
According to the US DoJ’s press release, Keonne Rodriguez, 37, the CEO, was sentenced to five years in prison on November 6, 2025, while William Lonergan Hill, 67, the Chief Technology Officer, was sentenced to four years on November 19, 2025. Both received their sentences from US District Judge Denise L. Cote in New York.
What Happened – Concealing Dirty Money
The pair pleaded guilty in late July to conspiracy charges for running an unlicensed money transmitting business. This means they operated a service that moved money on behalf of others without the required government permission, using it to help users with money laundering (the act of hiding illegally obtained cash).
Authorities argued that the platform, launched in 2015 as a mobile application, was intentionally built to hide illicit Bitcoin transactions. This was achieved through two tools: Whirlpool (launched in 2019), which mixed a user’s Bitcoin with that of other users in groups, and Ricochet (launched in 2017), which added extra steps, called hops, between the person sending the money and the person receiving it, specifically to block law enforcement from tracking the transfers.
Fraud and Penalties
Further probing revealed the executives actively promoted the service to criminals. Hill marketed Samourai on the dark web forum Dread, advising users on “cleaning dirty BTC,” and Rodriguez, in a WhatsApp exchange, explicitly described their mixing activity as “money laundering for bitcoin.”
Prosecutors proved the company knowingly handled over $237 million from various criminal activities, including drug trafficking, online fraud, cyberattacks, websites linked to child exploitation, and even schemes involving murder-for-hire and sanctioned countries.
It is worth noting that while $237 million was directly tied to illegal activity, the services processed over 80,000 Bitcoin (worth over $2 billion at the time), which earned Samourai approximately $6 million in fees.
In addition to prison time, both were sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $250,000 in fines each. They have already given up over $6.36 million, the money Samourai earned in fees, and are responsible for the remaining balance of the total forfeiture order, which is over $237 million.
US Attorney Nicolas Roos commented that the sentences reflect the harm done to victims by making it nearly impossible for them to recover stolen funds. The arrests and platform’s seizure, announced in April 2024, involved extensive teamwork between the Justice Department, the FBI, IRS-Criminal Investigation, Europol, and police in Iceland and Portugal, which helped authorities seize Samourai’s domain and servers at the time of the arrests.