In a major development, Samourai Wallet co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill have been stopped by US authorities for operating an unlicensed money transfer business and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The duo allegedly facilitated the laundering of more than $100 million in criminal proceeds, including funds from the Silk Road and the Hydra market.
Alleged criminal activities of Samourai Wallet
The arrests of Rodriguez and Hill followed an extensive investigation by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), in collaboration with the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). .
The indictment unsealed by the DOJ reveals that Samourai Wallet, a cryptocurrency mixing service, allegedly conducted more than $2 billion in “illegal transactions,” earning millions of dollars in fees.
According to the DOJ’s press release on the subject, Samourai Wallet used various features to enable anonymous financial transactions, thereby attracting criminals seeking to engage in “large-scale” money laundering and evade sanctions.
“Whirlpool” and “Ricochet” functionalities under surveillance
The cryptocurrency mixing service offered by Samourai Wallet, known as “Whirlpool,” is alleged to have facilitated the coordination of cryptocurrency exchanges between groups of users in order to prevent product tracking. crime on the blockchain.
Additionally, Samourai Wallet provided a feature called “Ricochet,” allowing users to add unnecessary intermediary transactions to allegedly hide the origin of cryptocurrency batches.
These features have collectively processed over 80,000 BTC (worth over $2 billion) since their introduction, with Samourai Wallet collecting substantial fees estimated at $3.4 million for Whirlpool transactions and 1.1 million dollars for the Ricochet transactions, as revealed by the DOJ.
As legal proceedings unfold, Rodriguez has been arrested and is expected to appear before a U.S. judge in the Western District of Pennsylvania, while Hill has been arrested in Portugal, and the United States intends to seek his extradition for trial . They risk up to 5 years in prison.
Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com
