Samourai Wallet Founders Arrested and Charged With Money Laundering

Based on a statement released on Wednesday, the duo is responsible for creating, promoting, and managing the mixer that allegedly processed over $100 million in ill-gotten gains from clandestine internet markets.

According to the report, Samurai is believed to have played a role in approximately $2 billion worth of illegal financial deals between the years 2015 and now.

Prosecutors allege that Rodriguez, aged 35, and Hill, aged 65, earned around $4.5 million from the fees they charged for their mixing tasks.

The duo face charges for conspiring to launder money and running an unlicensed money transferring business without permission. The penalties for these offenses max out at 20 years and 5 years in prison.

Rodriguez got taken into custody on Wednesday morning and is expected to face charges in Pennsylvania sometime today or the next day, as stated in the official announcement. In contrast, Hill, the CTO of Samourai Wallet, was apprehended in Portugal on Wednesday morning and will be transported to the United States for further legal proceedings.

The Samurai Wallet website, located in Iceland and managed by Samourai, has been taken over, and a warrant has been granted for seizing their mobile app from the Google Play Store.

Since 2015, Samourai has been under development, according to the DOJ’s statement. Rodriguez and Hill allegedly urged and openly welcomed users to clean their ill-gotten gains, as mentioned in the press release, quoting tweets and personal messages as evidence.

At Samourai, our primary concern is ensuring censorship resistance and building a circular economy that includes both black and grey markets. While this may not lead to widespread adoption in the near future, the growth of these markets has become increasingly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic and will persist beyond it.

The duo pursued potential backers by highlighting the same proposition: they planned to attract “participants from the less regulated markets” among their customer base, according to the announcement.

On Wednesdays, the DOJ is making arrests as they get ready for their trial against Roman Storm, a cryptocurrency developer and co-founder of Tornado Cash. This trial is being handled by the Southern District of New York branch of the DOJ. Notably, the DOJ’s Washington D.C. division recently secured a guilty verdict against Roman Sterlingov, the mastermind behind Bitcoin Fog, for money laundering offenses.

UPDATE (April 24, 2024, 19:20 UTC): Adds additional detail.