U.S. seeks max sentence for Samourai wallet founders
New York prosecutors seek five-year terms for Samourai Wallet founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill after guilty pleas.
U.S. prosecutors asked a federal judge in Manhattan to impose the statutory maximum five-year sentences on Samourai Wallet co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill. Rodriguez is set for sentencing on November 6 at 11:00 a.m. ET, with Hill to follow on November 7 in the Southern District of New York.
In a sentencing memorandum, the government argues the pair conspired to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business that was built and marketed to conceal criminal proceeds. The offense carries up to five years under 18 U.S.C. § 371.
Rodriguez and Hill pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter involving funds known to be derived from criminal activity. In return, prosecutors agreed to drop counts that included conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit sanctions violations.
The filing attributes at least $237 million in illicit proceeds to transactions routed through Samourai between 2015 and April 2024, when authorities shut the service. The defendants collected more than $6.3 million in fees, equal to about 246.3 BTC, which the memo values at roughly $26.9 million at current prices.
Private and public messages were cited to show intent. In a 2018 WhatsApp chat, Rodriguez referred to mixing as “money laundering for bitcoin,” according to the memo. Posts attributed to Hill on dark web forums in 2020 and 2023 promoted Samourai as “cleaning dirty Bitcoin” and making funds “untraceable.”
Prosecutors link the service to proceeds from darknet markets, including Silk Road and Hydra, multiple cryptocurrency exchange hacks, child sexual abuse material distribution sites, murder-for-hire schemes, and transactions involving sanctioned entities in Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
The probation office recommended 42-month terms for each defendant, while prosecutors are urging the court to impose the full five years.
Samourai Wallet functioned as a Bitcoin mixing service, which pools and redistributes users’ coins to make the origin of funds harder to trace. Authorities shut the platform in April 2024. The case is before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
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