Samourai Wallet founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill have been arrested by US authorities for laundering over $100 million.
According to a press statement from the U.S. Department of Justice on April 24, federal prosecutors have indicted Rodriguez and Hill on charges of conspiracy to launder money and operating an unlicensed money exchange business through the crypto mixing platform Samourai.
The notice states that Rodriguez was arrested in the United States, while Hill was arrested in Portugal and will be extradited to face trial. If convicted, Rodriguez faces up to 20 years in prison and Hill faces up to five years in prison.
The Samourai Wallet website hosted in Iceland was also seized, and the Google Play Store was requested to remove the app.
Samourai Wallet website was seized | Source: US Department of Justice
Authorities claim the two allowed more than $2 billion in illicit transactions through the protocol and collected more than $4.5 million in processing fees since 2015. The Justice Department said Samourai's creators promoted the platform as "focused on censorship resistance and dark/gray economic cycles," providing a safe haven for criminals to conduct covert activities.
Hill’s private messages and social media posts were cited as evidence that the Samourai platform knew criminals were using its tools for illegal activity and, in some cases, even encouraged it.
The arrests are a continuation of an ongoing crackdown on crypto mixers, which are believed to be used by threat actors such as North Korea’s Lazarus to evade regulation and undermine law enforcement.
Last month, federal prosecutors won their case against Bitcoin Fog founder Roman Sterlingov for facilitating more than $400 million in illegal drug sales.
The Justice Department also filed a lawsuit against Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, while other cryptocurrency mixers such as Blender and Sinbad were also sanctioned. #DOJ #SamouraiWallet