The post Samourai Wallet founders risk five-year term after pleading guilty to laundering charges appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Samourai Wallet founders could be looking at a five-year prison term as U.S. prosecutors have pushed for maximum sentencing for their alleged roles in operating a crypto mixing service used to launder hundreds of millions in illicit funds. Summary Samourai Wallet founders can face a five-year prison term for their roles in operating an unlicensed money transmitter. The sentencing has been scheduled for Nov. 6. Prosecutors claim the pair marketed Samourai to darknet users and earned over $6.3 million in fees from illicit activity. A sentencing memorandum filed with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said the founders, William Lonergan Hill and Keonne Rodriguez, “repeatedly solicited, encouraged, and invited criminals” to use the platform, ultimately turning Samourai Wallet into a “haven for criminals to engage in large-scale money laundering and sanctions evasion.” “Rodriguez and Hill were not mere bystanders to the money laundering conducted through Samourai; they affirmatively wanted criminals to use Samourai to commit money laundering and marketed Samourai accordingly,” the filing said. Prosecutors cited a 2018 WhatsApp message in which Rodriguez described mixing as “money laundering for bitcoin,” implying that the founders had been fully aware of how their tools were being used.  Hill, according to the filing, took to dark web forums like Dread to pitch Samourai’s Whirlpool service, telling users it could help “clean dirty BTC” and make their transactions “untraceable.” “Through Samourai, Rodriguez and Hill earned millions of dollars in fees by laundering the proceeds of drug trafficking, darknet marketplaces (including multiple murder-for-hire solicitations and the distribution of child sexual abuse materials), cyber intrusions and frauds, sanctions evasion, and other criminal activities,” the filing added. Estimates in the filing suggest Samourai Wallet managed to solicit over $6.3 million in fees from their mixing services between 2015 and 2024, equivalent to…

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Filed under: News - @ November 4, 2025 8:27 am