The founders of the Samurai portion (Samourai) Cryptocurrency Mixer have found guilty about money laundering of more than $ 200 million for criminals.
Samourai CEO Keonne Rodriguez and CTO William Lonergan Hill admitted to their involvement In the Samourai money laundering practice, guilty of conspiracy for the operation of a money shipping company that has dealt with criminal proceeds, and is now confronted with a maximum prison sentence of five years in prison.
As part of their pleid allocations, Rodriguez and Hill also agreed to forfeit $ 237,832,360.55.
The two defendants were arrested in April 2024 and accused by the US Department of Justice with two counts of conspiracy: exploiting a company with money exaggerated (with a maximum punishment of 5 years) and money laundering (with a maximum punishment of 20 years).
The day they were arrested, the Icelandic law enforcement also seized the domains of Samourai (Samouraiwallet[.]com and samurai[.]Io) and servers, while Google removed the Android Mobile app from the Play Store after he was served an attack order.
Although this operation was active, the mobile application of Samourai Wallet was downloaded more than 100,000 times, allowing users to perform anonymous financial transactions.
According to Court documentsRodriguez and Hill have also promoted Samourai as a tool for hiding illegal yields, which clearly recognizes the potential for illegal use. In one case, Rodriguez referred to “mixing” as “money laundering of money for bitcoin” in a WhatsApp change.
Hill also advertised Samourai on a dark web forum as a way of “not tracing” Bitcoin and for “cleaning dirty btc”, recognized that the customers of service include dark and gray market participants.
In mid-2020, Rodriguez and Hill also followed the proceeds of a large hack and urged the hackers to use Samourai’s whirlpool service instead of reporting crime to the authorities. When the hackers opted for a different service, both expressed disappointment on social media.
Between 2015 and February 2024, criminals used Samourai’s Whirlpool Bitcoin Mixing service to process more than 80,000 Bitcoins (valued on more than $ 2 billion) in illegal funds of cyberintrusions, illegal dark web markets, a spear -lease schemes.
In addition to his crypto mixtures, Samourai also offered ‘ricochet’, a service with which users could send cryptocurrency through unnecessary intermediate transactions and cross -trees law enforcement and crypto exchange efforts to follow funds from criminal activities.
The two money laundering services reportedly generated more than $ 6 million in reimbursements of whirlpool and ricochet transactions for the two founders.
“The defendants created and operated a cryptocurrency mixing service that they knew could wash criminals in dirty money, including revenues from thefts of cryptocurrency, drug trafficking and fraud arrangements,” ” said Lawyer for the United States Nicolas Roos in a press release on Wednesday.
“Rodriguez and Hill admitted that they have exploited a money from the transmission of the transfer of crime, essentially more than $ 200 million in ‘dirty’ money for criminals ‘washing’. They have not only facilitated this illegal movement of money, but also encouraged,” added Irs-ci special agent, Jr. added
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