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{"actor":"system:backfill","investigation_id":"b38229cc-69c0-4ebb-9c0e-73ec2fc3263f","kind":"publish","page_slug":"samourai-wallet","published_at":"2026-05-31T06:59:58.165Z","sequence_num":1,"snapshot":{"content_type":"investigation","entity_name":"Samourai Wallet","sections":[{"content":"Samourai Wallet was an open-source, Android-only Bitcoin wallet first released in 2015. It was designed specifically for users who prioritized financial privacy and censorship resistance, accumulating over 100,000 mobile app downloads during its operational life. The wallet was non-custodial, meaning users retained control of their own private keys at all times. Its principal privacy tools included Whirlpool, a Chaumian CoinJoin implementation that pooled transactions among five or more participants of equal denomination to break deterministic transaction links; Ricochet, a feature that added extra hops between a sender and recipient to obscure the transaction trail; and Dojo, a self-hosted backend node allowing users to avoid relying on Samourai's own servers. The wallet also routed traffic over Tor and discouraged address reuse by default. The service processed what the DOJ alleged was over $2 billion in total Bitcoin transactions from 2015 through its shutdown in April 2024, collecting an estimated $4.5 million in fees. Internal communications cited by prosecutors showed co-founder William Hill explicitly describing the target audience as 'dark/grey market participants' and referring to a 'black/grey circular economy.'","heading":"Background and Product History","severity":"medium","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet Founders Arrested and Charged With Money Laundering — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/04/24/samourai-wallet-founders-arrested-and-charged-with-money-laundering"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet — Wikipedia","type":"other","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samourai_Wallet"},{"credibility":3,"name":"How Samourai Wallet Worked and Why It Matters — Freedom.tech","type":"other","url":"https://freedom.tech/how-samourai-worked/"}]},{"content":"On April 24, 2024, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced the arrests of co-founder and CEO Keonne Rodriguez, 35, in Pennsylvania, and co-founder and CTO William Lonergan Hill, 65, in Portugal for purposes of extradition. Both were charged with two counts: conspiracy to commit money laundering (maximum 20 years) and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business (maximum 5 years). The DOJ alleged that Samourai Wallet operated as an unlicensed money transmitting business that processed over $2 billion in unlawful transactions and laundered more than $100 million in criminal proceeds, including proceeds from darknet drug markets, cyber intrusions, fraud schemes, sanctioned jurisdictions, murder-for-hire schemes, and a child pornography website. The DOJ also alleged $237 million in identifiable criminal proceeds flowed through the service. In coordination with Icelandic authorities, law enforcement seized Samourai's web servers and domain, and served a seizure warrant on the Google Play Store to remove the mobile application. Rodriguez was released on a $1 million bond after pleading not guilty at his April 29, 2024 arraignment.","heading":"DOJ Arrests and Federal Charges (April 2024)","severity":"critical","sources":[{"credibility":1,"name":"DOJ SDNY Press Release: Founders And CEO Of Cryptocurrency Mixing Service Arrested And Charged","type":"regulatory","url":"https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founders-and-ceo-cryptocurrency-mixing-service-arrested-and-charged-money-laundering"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet Founders Arrested and Charged With Money Laundering — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/04/24/samourai-wallet-founders-arrested-and-charged-with-money-laundering"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet Co-Founder Keonne Rodriguez Pleads Not Guilty, Released on $1M Bond — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/04/29/samourai-wallet-co-founder-keonne-rodriguez-pleads-not-guilty-released-on-1m-bond"},{"credibility":2,"name":"US Takes Down Illegal Cryptocurrency Mixing Service Samourai Wallet — Infosecurity Magazine","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/us-takes-down-crypto-samourai/"}]},{"content":"The central legal controversy in the Samourai Wallet case concerns whether a non-custodial software wallet that never takes control of user funds qualifies as a 'money transmitter' under the Bank Secrecy Act and therefore must register as a Money Services Business (MSB) with FinCEN. Since at least 2013, FinCEN guidance had consistently held that non-custodial wallet developers are not money transmitters. In August 2023, six months before the indictment, DOJ prosecutors contacted FinCEN directly to ask whether Samourai's non-custodial wallet and CoinJoin software constituted money transmission. FinCEN officials responded that they did not believe Samourai Wallet qualified as an MSB given its non-custodial nature. Prosecutors did not disclose this exculpatory communication to defense counsel or the court until April 1, 2025, more than a year after the indictment and only in response to a specific Brady request. Defense attorneys filed a motion in May 2025 characterizing the delayed disclosure as a Brady violation and calling for dismissal. Prosecutors denied the accusation, characterizing the FinCEN communication as 'informal' and 'caveated.' Organizations including Coin Center and the Bitcoin Policy Institute argued the prosecution represented a dangerous departure from settled regulatory interpretation and threatened open-source development more broadly.","heading":"The Non-Custodial MSB Legal Debate","severity":"high","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet's Lawyers Say Prosecution Suppressed Critical Evidence, Call for Dismissal — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/05/05/samourai-wallet-s-lawyers-say-prosecution-suppressed-critical-evidence-call-for-dismissal"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet Prosecutors Say Delayed FinCEN Disclosure Wasn't a Brady Violation — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/05/09/samourai-wallet-prosecutors-say-delayed-fincen-disclosure-wasn-t-a-brady-violation"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Brady Letter Reveals DOJ Ignored FinCEN in Samourai Case — Bitcoin Policy Institute","type":"other","url":"https://www.btcpolicy.org/articles/fincen-said-that-samourai-wallet-case-violated-treasurys-aml-guidance--doj-prosecuted-devs-anyway"},{"credibility":2,"name":"DOJ's New Stance on Crypto Wallets is a Threat to Liberty and the Rule of Law — Coin Center","type":"other","url":"https://www.coincenter.org/dojs-new-stance-on-crypto-wallets-is-a-threat-to-liberty-and-the-rule-of-law/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"The DOJ's Dangerous New Legal Theory: Implications for Samourai Wallet and Bitcoin Self-Custody — Bitcoin Policy Institute","type":"other","url":"https://www.btcpolicy.org/articles/the-dojs-dangerous-new-legal-theory-implications-for-samourai-wallet-and-bitcoin-self-custody"}]},{"content":"On April 24, 2024, as part of the enforcement action, U.S. authorities working with Icelandic law enforcement seized Samourai Wallet's backend web servers hosted in Iceland and the primary domain. A warrant was served on Google to remove the Android application from the Play Store. The seizure rendered the Whirlpool mixing service inoperable and left existing users unable to access the coordinators required for CoinJoin transactions. Users who had active Whirlpool mixing pools at the time of the seizure faced potential fund recovery difficulties. Subsequently, the seized domain was allowed to lapse and was later re-registered by third parties. By March 2026, security researchers reported that the former samouraiwallet.com domain had been hijacked and was being used to host sophisticated Bitcoin phishing attacks and malware distribution, with subdomains flagged by VirusTotal for distributing trojanized documents designed to steal wallet credentials. Users seeking to recover funds from the shutdown wallet were advised to import their seed phrase into compatible non-custodial wallets rather than interact with any site claiming to be Samourai.","heading":"Infrastructure Seizure and Post-Seizure Domain Hijacking","severity":"high","sources":[{"credibility":1,"name":"DOJ SDNY Press Release: Founders And CEO Of Cryptocurrency Mixing Service Arrested And Charged","type":"regulatory","url":"https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founders-and-ceo-cryptocurrency-mixing-service-arrested-and-charged-money-laundering"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet Domain Hijacked by Scammers After FBI Seizure — CryptoTimes","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/03/24/samourai-wallet-domain-hijacked-by-scammers-after-fbi-seizure/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Seized Samourai Wallet Domain Hijacked, Now Hosts Sophisticated Bitcoin Phishing Scam — CoinAlertNews","type":"news_article","url":"https://coinalertnews.com/news/2026/03/24/samourai-wallet-domain-hijacked-phishing"}]},{"content":"On July 30, 2025, Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill each pleaded guilty to the single count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. As part of the plea agreements, the more serious money laundering conspiracy charge — which carries a maximum of 20 years — was dropped. On November 6, 2025, Rodriguez was sentenced by Judge Richard Berman in the Southern District of New York to 60 months (five years) in federal prison and fined $250,000. On November 19, 2025, Hill was sentenced to 48 months (four years) by Judge Denise Cote, who cited Hill's autism diagnosis and age as mitigating factors in reducing his sentence below the statutory maximum of 60 months. Both sentences were among the longest handed down for a money transmission offense in the cryptocurrency space at the time. Bitcoin forfeited as part of the plea agreements became the subject of controversy when it was alleged the U.S. Marshals Service had liquidated the assets in potential violation of President Trump's executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve; the Trump White House subsequently confirmed the DOJ had clarified the bitcoin had not been sold and would remain on the government balance sheet.","heading":"Guilty Pleas and Federal Sentencing (2025)","severity":"critical","sources":[{"credibility":1,"name":"DOJ SDNY: Founders Of Samourai Wallet Sentenced To Five And Four Years In Prison","type":"regulatory","url":"https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founders-samourai-wallet-cryptocurrency-mixing-service-sentenced-five-and-four-years"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet Developer Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/11/06/samourai-wallet-developer-sentenced-to-5-years-in-prison-for-unlicensed-money-transmitting"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet Co-Founder Bill Hill Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/11/19/samourai-wallet-co-founder-bill-hill-sentenced-to-4-years-in-prison-for-unlicensed-money-transmitting"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet Devs Plead Guilty to Conspiring to Run Unlicensed Money Transmitter — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/07/30/samourai-wallet-devs-plead-guilty-to-conspiring-to-run-unlicensed-money-transmitter"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet Co-Founder Sentenced — Money Laundering Watch","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.moneylaunderingnews.com/2025/11/samourai-wallet-co-founder-sentenced/"}]},{"content":"On April 7, 2025 — before the July 2025 guilty pleas — Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memorandum titled 'Ending Regulation by Prosecution,' directing DOJ prosecutors to stop using criminal charges as a substitute for clear regulatory guidance in the digital asset space. The memo explicitly stated the DOJ 'will no longer target virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services, and offline wallets for the acts of their end users or unwitting violations of regulations,' and prohibited charges unless a defendant willfully ignored a clear licensing duty. Privacy advocates argued this memo vindicated the defense position in the Samourai case, though prosecutors proceeded regardless and the defendants ultimately pleaded guilty. After sentencing in November 2025, President Trump indicated he would review a potential pardon for Rodriguez following public pressure from Bitcoin advocates including Angela McArdle and Zack Shapiro. As of early 2026, no pardon had been formally issued. The case is widely cited alongside the prosecution of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm as a landmark test of how far federal law extends to open-source privacy software developers.","heading":"DOJ Policy Shift, Pardon Discussions, and Post-Conviction Developments","severity":"high","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Trump to Review Pardon for Samourai Wallet Co-Founder — The Block","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.theblock.co/post/382630/trump-pardon-samourai-keonne-rodriguez"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet Case: President Trump to Review Pardon for Founder Keonne Rodriguez — Yahoo Finance","type":"news_article","url":"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/samourai-wallet-case-president-trump-061705008.html"},{"credibility":2,"name":"The Prosecution of Samourai Wallet Developers: Expanding the Reach of Crypto Enforcement — Money Laundering Watch","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.moneylaunderingnews.com/2025/12/the-prosecution-of-samourai-wallet-developers-expanding-the-reach-of-crypto-enforcement/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"After Samourai, DOJ's Money-Transmitter Theory Now Looms Over Crypto Mixers — CoinTelegraph","type":"news_article","url":"https://cointelegraph.com/news/samourai-sentences-cement-doj-money-transmitter-theory"}]},{"content":"The Samourai Wallet prosecution provoked strong reactions from the Bitcoin and privacy advocacy communities. Critics argued it represented regulatory overreach that would chill open-source software development and financial privacy tools broadly. Coin Center, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Bitcoin Policy Institute all published analyses challenging the DOJ's legal theory. Privacy advocates called for pardons and political pressure on the White House after sentencing. Supporters of law enforcement framed the case as targeting a service that demonstrably attracted illicit proceeds from drug trafficking, darknet markets, and other serious crimes, pointing to prosecutors' internal communications as evidence of intent. On September 20, 2024, an anonymous developer group announced Ashigaru, a hard fork of the Samourai Wallet codebase that removed the centralized coordinator infrastructure implicated in the DOJ case, replacing it with mandatory self-hosted Dojo nodes. The Ashigaru developers stated they had no affiliation with Rodriguez or Hill and positioned the project as a continuation of Samourai's privacy mission under a more decentralized architecture.","heading":"Community Reaction and the Ashigaru Fork","severity":"medium","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet Trial: A Test Of Financial Privacy And Developer Freedoms — Bitcoin Magazine","type":"news_article","url":"https://bitcoinmagazine.com/politics/the-samourai-wallet-trial-a-test-of-financial-privacy-and-developer-freedoms"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Worst-Case Samourai Wallet Sentencing Rallies Privacy Advocates — Cryptopolitan","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.cryptopolitan.com/samourai-wallet-sentence-privacy-advocates/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet Forked Into Open-Source Project Ashigaru — BeInCrypto","type":"news_article","url":"https://beincrypto.com/ashigaru-samourai-wallet-fork-bitcoin-privacy/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Samourai Wallet Forked Into Ashigaru, Open Source Project — CoinTelegraph","type":"news_article","url":"https://cointelegraph.com/news/samourai-wallet-forked-ashigaru-open-source-project"}]}],"sources_used":[{"name":"DOJ SDNY: Founders And CEO Of Cryptocurrency Mixing Service Arrested And Charged","type":"regulatory","url":"https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founders-and-ceo-cryptocurrency-mixing-service-arrested-and-charged-money-laundering"},{"name":"DOJ SDNY: Founders Of Samourai Wallet Sentenced To Five And Four Years In Prison","type":"regulatory","url":"https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founders-samourai-wallet-cryptocurrency-mixing-service-sentenced-five-and-four-years"},{"name":"Samourai Wallet Founders Arrested and Charged With Money Laundering — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/04/24/samourai-wallet-founders-arrested-and-charged-with-money-laundering"},{"name":"Samourai Wallet Devs Plead Guilty — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/07/30/samourai-wallet-devs-plead-guilty-to-conspiring-to-run-unlicensed-money-transmitter"},{"name":"Samourai Wallet Developer Sentenced to 5 Years — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/11/06/samourai-wallet-developer-sentenced-to-5-years-in-prison-for-unlicensed-money-transmitting"},{"name":"Samourai Wallet Co-Founder Bill Hill Sentenced to 4 Years — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/11/19/samourai-wallet-co-founder-bill-hill-sentenced-to-4-years-in-prison-for-unlicensed-money-transmitting"},{"name":"Defense Says Prosecution Suppressed Critical Evidence — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/05/05/samourai-wallet-s-lawyers-say-prosecution-suppressed-critical-evidence-call-for-dismissal"},{"name":"Prosecutors Say FinCEN Disclosure Wasn't Brady Violation — CoinDesk","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/05/09/samourai-wallet-prosecutors-say-delayed-fincen-disclosure-wasn-t-a-brady-violation"},{"name":"Brady Letter Reveals DOJ Ignored FinCEN — Bitcoin Policy Institute","type":"other","url":"https://www.btcpolicy.org/articles/fincen-said-that-samourai-wallet-case-violated-treasurys-aml-guidance--doj-prosecuted-devs-anyway"},{"name":"DOJ's New Stance on Crypto Wallets is a Threat to Liberty — Coin Center","type":"other","url":"https://www.coincenter.org/dojs-new-stance-on-crypto-wallets-is-a-threat-to-liberty-and-the-rule-of-law/"},{"name":"Samourai Wallet — Wikipedia","type":"other","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samourai_Wallet"},{"name":"Samourai Wallet Domain Hijacked by Scammers After FBI Seizure — CryptoTimes","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/03/24/samourai-wallet-domain-hijacked-by-scammers-after-fbi-seizure/"},{"name":"Samourai Wallet Forked Into Ashigaru — BeInCrypto","type":"news_article","url":"https://beincrypto.com/ashigaru-samourai-wallet-fork-bitcoin-privacy/"},{"name":"Trump to Review Pardon for Samourai Wallet Co-Founder — The Block","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.theblock.co/post/382630/trump-pardon-samourai-keonne-rodriguez"},{"name":"The Prosecution of Samourai Wallet Developers — Money Laundering Watch","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.moneylaunderingnews.com/2025/12/the-prosecution-of-samourai-wallet-developers-expanding-the-reach-of-crypto-enforcement/"},{"name":"After Samourai, DOJ's Money-Transmitter Theory Looms Over Crypto Mixers — CoinTelegraph","type":"news_article","url":"https://cointelegraph.com/news/samourai-sentences-cement-doj-money-transmitter-theory"},{"name":"Samourai Wallet Releases Privacy-Enhancing CoinJoin Feature — CoinDesk (2019)","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2019/06/25/samourai-wallet-releases-privacy-enhancing-coinjoin-feature"}],"summary":"Samourai Wallet was a privacy-focused, non-custodial Bitcoin wallet developed since 2015 that offered CoinJoin mixing (Whirlpool), transaction obfuscation (Ricochet), and self-hosted node support (Dojo). In April 2024, co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill were arrested by the U.S. Department of Justice on charges of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business and conspiracy to commit money laundering; both pleaded guilty in July 2025 and were sentenced to five and four years in federal prison respectively in November 2025. The case generated significant legal controversy, including a Brady disclosure revealing that FinCEN had told prosecutors before the indictment that Samourai did not qualify as a money transmitter, and a subsequent DOJ policy memo directing prosecutors to stop targeting non-custodial wallet developers.","timeline":[{"date":"2015-01-01","event":"Samourai Wallet first released as an open-source, privacy-focused Android Bitcoin wallet by Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill.","source":"Wikipedia / CoinDesk","source_url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samourai_Wallet"},{"date":"2019-06-25","event":"Samourai Wallet releases the Whirlpool CoinJoin feature, a Chaumian CoinJoin implementation for Bitcoin transaction privacy.","source":"CoinDesk","source_url":"https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2019/06/25/samourai-wallet-releases-privacy-enhancing-coinjoin-feature"},{"date":"2023-08-01","event":"DOJ prosecutors contact FinCEN to ask whether Samourai Wallet qualifies as a money transmitter. FinCEN responds that it does not, given the non-custodial nature of the product. This communication is not disclosed to defense counsel at the time of indictment.","source":"CoinDesk / Bitcoin Policy Institute","source_url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/05/05/samourai-wallet-s-lawyers-say-prosecution-suppressed-critical-evidence-call-for-dismissal"},{"date":"2024-04-24","event":"DOJ SDNY announces the arrest of Keonne Rodriguez in Pennsylvania and William Lonergan Hill in Portugal (for extradition) on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. Samourai's servers in Iceland and its primary domain are seized; Google Play Store is served a seizure warrant.","source":"DOJ SDNY Press Release","source_url":"https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founders-and-ceo-cryptocurrency-mixing-service-arrested-and-charged-money-laundering"},{"date":"2024-04-29","event":"Keonne Rodriguez arraigned in the Southern District of New York, pleads not guilty, and is released on a $1 million bond.","source":"CoinDesk","source_url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/04/29/samourai-wallet-co-founder-keonne-rodriguez-pleads-not-guilty-released-on-1m-bond"},{"date":"2024-09-20","event":"An anonymous developer group announces Ashigaru, a hard fork of the Samourai Wallet codebase, removing centralized coordinator infrastructure and replacing it with mandatory self-hosted Dojo nodes.","source":"BeInCrypto / CoinTelegraph","source_url":"https://beincrypto.com/ashigaru-samourai-wallet-fork-bitcoin-privacy/"},{"date":"2025-04-01","event":"DOJ prosecutors disclose to defense counsel — in response to a Brady request — the August 2023 FinCEN communication stating Samourai Wallet was not a money transmitter.","source":"CoinDesk","source_url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/05/05/samourai-wallet-s-lawyers-say-prosecution-suppressed-critical-evidence-call-for-dismissal"},{"date":"2025-04-07","event":"Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issues the 'Ending Regulation by Prosecution' memo, directing DOJ to stop targeting crypto mixing and tumbling services for end-user conduct and to avoid charges unless a defendant willfully ignored a clear licensing duty.","source":"Bitcoin Policy Institute / CoinTelegraph","source_url":"https://www.btcpolicy.org/articles/fincen-said-that-samourai-wallet-case-violated-treasurys-aml-guidance--doj-prosecuted-devs-anyway"},{"date":"2025-05-05","event":"Defense attorneys file a letter to Judge Richard Berman characterizing the delayed FinCEN disclosure as a Brady violation and calling for dismissal of the case.","source":"CoinDesk","source_url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/05/05/samourai-wallet-s-lawyers-say-prosecution-suppressed-critical-evidence-call-for-dismissal"},{"date":"2025-05-09","event":"Prosecutors respond to Brady allegations, arguing the FinCEN disclosure was timely and that the communication was merely an 'informal and caveated opinion.'","source":"CoinDesk","source_url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/05/09/samourai-wallet-prosecutors-say-delayed-fincen-disclosure-wasn-t-a-brady-violation"},{"date":"2025-07-30","event":"Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill each plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. The money laundering conspiracy count is dropped as part of the plea agreements.","source":"CoinDesk","source_url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/07/30/samourai-wallet-devs-plead-guilty-to-conspiring-to-run-unlicensed-money-transmitter"},{"date":"2025-11-06","event":"Keonne Rodriguez sentenced to 60 months (five years) in federal prison and fined $250,000 for conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.","source":"CoinDesk / DOJ SDNY","source_url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/11/06/samourai-wallet-developer-sentenced-to-5-years-in-prison-for-unlicensed-money-transmitting"},{"date":"2025-11-19","event":"William Lonergan Hill sentenced to 48 months (four years) in federal prison. Judge Denise Cote cites Hill's autism diagnosis and age as mitigating factors reducing the sentence below the 60-month statutory maximum.","source":"CoinDesk","source_url":"https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/11/19/samourai-wallet-co-founder-bill-hill-sentenced-to-4-years-in-prison-for-unlicensed-money-transmitting"},{"date":"2026-03-24","event":"Security researchers report that the former samouraiwallet.com domain, originally seized by the FBI, has been hijacked by malicious actors and is being used to distribute Bitcoin phishing attacks and malware targeting wallet credentials.","source":"CryptoTimes / CoinAlertNews","source_url":"https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/03/24/samourai-wallet-domain-hijacked-by-scammers-after-fbi-seizure/"}]},"v":1}