The U.S. Justice Department has announced the sentencing of Samourai Wallet’s two co-founders for their role in knowingly transmitting more than $237 million in criminal proceeds through the cryptocurrency-mixing platform
Authorities say the platform’s design enabled users to mask the origin of funds tied to drug trafficking, darknet marketplaces, cyber intrusions, fraud schemes, sanctioned jurisdictions, murder-for-hire operations, and child exploitation sites.
Nicolas Roos, Attorney for the United States acting under 28 U.S.C. § 515, said the outcomes “send a clear message that laundering known criminal proceeds—regardless of whether the funds are in fiat or cryptocurrency—will face serious consequences.”
Five- and Four-Year Prison Terms
U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote sentenced CEO Keonne Rodriguez to five years in prison on August 6, 2025, and CTO William Lonergan Hill to four years on November 19, 2025. Both were convicted of participating in a conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business that knowingly processed criminal proceeds.
In addition to prison time, each will serve three years of supervised release and pay a $250,000 fine. They have jointly forfeited more than $6.3 million, representing the fees Samourai earned through the illicit transactions.
How Samourai Wallet Enabled Large-Scale Laundering
According to court documents, Rodriguez and Hill began building Samourai Wallet in 2015 with features designed to hide transaction origins. Two core services—Whirlpool and Ricochet—played a central role:
- Whirlpool mixed Bitcoin among batches of users, obscuring transaction histories and preventing investigators and exchanges from tracing the original source.
- Ricochet added intentional “hops” between sending and receiving addresses, complicating blockchain analysis and further distancing funds from their origins.
Between Ricochet’s launch in 2017 and Whirlpool’s expansion in 2019, more than 80,000 Bitcoin—valued at over $2 billion at the time—moved through Samourai’s infrastructure. Prosecutors emphasized that the volume of transactions showed how deeply the platform was embedded in criminal financial flows.
Promotion to Criminal Users
Evidence presented in court showed that both co-founders actively encouraged use of Samourai Wallet on darknet forums, encrypted channels, and social media. Hill allegedly promoted Whirlpool on Dread, a marketplace forum, positioning it as a superior method to “clean dirty BTC.” Rodriguez, in a separate 2020 exchange, urged hackers involved in a major social media breach to route their stolen funds through Samourai.
In private WhatsApp messages, Rodriguez reportedly described mixing as “money laundering for bitcoin.” Samourai’s own internal marketing material classified its target users as “Dark/Grey Market participants.”
Global Investigation and International Support
The investigation involved multiple international partners, including Europol, the Portuguese Judicial Police, and the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs. Hill was arrested in Portugal and extradited in July 2024. Rodriguez was taken into custody in the United States.
The FBI, IRS-Criminal Investigation, and several European agencies contributed to evidence collection, digital forensics, and cross-border coordination