- Samourai’s founders have been sentenced in the US.
- Rodriguez and Hill will face five and four years in prison, respectively.
- The US attorney describes sentences as a warning to money launderers.
United States Attorney Nicolas Roos has announced the sentencing of Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, co-founders of Samourai Wallet. According to the announcement, both Rodriguez and Hill participated in a conspiracy to operate a money transmitting business linked with criminal proceeds.
Defendants Laundered Over $237M in Criminal Proceeds
Providing further details, Roos noted that the said transactions comprise over $237 million laundered through Samourai, involving criminal proceeds from drug trafficking, darknet marketplaces, cyber-intrusions, frauds, sanctioned jurisdictions, murder-for-hire schemes, and a child pornography website, among other things.
Notably, both suspects received varying sentences, with Rodriguez sentenced to five years in prison, while Hill will serve a four-year jail term, in judgments passed by US District Judge Denise L. Cote on November 6, 2025, and November 19, 2025, respectively.
A Clear Warning to Money Launderers
In the meantime, Roos described the sentences received by the defendants as a clear message that laundering known criminal proceeds—regardless of the technology used or whether the proceeds are in the form of fiat or cryptocurrency—will face serious consequences.
According to the Attorney, the sentences reflect the harmful impact that money laundering services have on victims by making it virtually impossible for them to recover their stolen funds. He further highlighted the readiness of his office to hold accountable those who profit by helping criminals hide their criminal proceeds.
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What is Samourai?
Rodriguez and Hill started developing Samouri, a cryptocurrency mixer, around 2015. According to statements made in court, the defendants engineered Samourai around two services specifically intended to conceal the nature of illicit transactions. The first service, Whirlpool, coordinated batches of Bitcoin exchanges between groups of Samourai users in a process that obscures the source of particular Bitcoin holdings within the blockchain’s transactional records.
Meanwhile, the second service, called “Ricochet,” enabled users to introduce additional and unnecessary intermediate transactions referred to as “hops” between sending and receiving addresses. This feature makes it substantially difficult to monitor connections between cryptocurrency transfers and potential illicit activities.
In the meantime, the Judge penalized both defendants with a fine of $250,000 each in addition to their prison terms. Meanwhile, they have also paid a total of $6,367,139.69 in forfeiture, representing the fees Samourai earned, in satisfaction of an order to forfeit $237,832,360.55, representing the total traceable criminal proceeds for which Samourai executed transactions.
Related Article: China Cracks Down on $19.5M Crypto Money Laundering Ring Using Mixing Services
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Source: https://coinedition.com/us-court-sentences-samourai-founders-to-five-and-four-years-in-prison/
