The founder of the crypto-mixer Samourai Wallet was arrested and charged with money laundering
According to the indictment, the crypto mixer allegedly conducted illegal transactions worth $2 billion and facilitated $100 million in money laundering.
The creators of the popular cryptocurrency mixer Samourai Wallet were detained on money laundering charges brought by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and other agencies. CEO Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill CTO are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, which carries a possible sentence of up to five years in prison. years.
The creators of the popular cryptocurrency mixer Samourai Wallet were detained on money laundering charges brought by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and other agencies. CEO Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill CTO are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, which carries a possible sentence of up to five years in prison. years.
Samourai Wallet is a blockchain protocol that allows for increased transaction privacy by hiding the connection between the source and recipient of tokens. Such services are often used by hackers to withdraw funds from attacked projects.
Rodriguez was arrested on the morning of April 24 in Pennsylvania, while Hill was arrested the same day in Portugal. According to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, the United States will seek Hill's extradition. The company's servers and domain were also seized in Iceland and a warrant was issued to stop downloading the company's app from the Google Play Store. The app has been downloaded more than 100,000 times.
Screenshot of the Samourai Wallet home page. The site is currently unavailable.
Since its inception in 2015, Samourai Wallet is estimated to have processed more than $2 billion in funds that were allegedly obtained through illegal means, according to investigators. These funds included proceeds from drug trafficking on darknet marketplaces Silk Road and Russia's Hydra, as well as funds originating from cybercrime and hacks of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.
Samourai Wallet, focused on increased privacy, offered its users a number of services to hide the origin of assets and obfuscate the chain of transaction recipients. One of these services was called Ricochet.
In 2019, the Samourai Wallet developers integrated the Whirlpool feature into their wallet, which is part of the broader CoinJoin anonymization solution. This feature made it possible to mathematically separate inputs (senders) from outputs (recipients), making it more difficult to track the movement of funds.
According to prosecutors, the total commission received by the creators of Samourai Wallet for providing services to Ricochet and Whirlpool was $4.5 million.
According to prosecutors, the total commission received by the creators of Samourai Wallet for providing services to Ricochet and Whirlpool was $4.5 million.
Regulators everywhere are tightening their rhetoric towards cryptocurrency mixers, which once again reminds us of the importance of AML verification of our addresses and the addresses of counterparties.
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Check your crypto wallet for cleanliness, protect yourself from blocking, perform AML address verification, track a transaction - you can do this and more in our Btrace solution. Free AML wallet verification for every new user.
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