April 25, 2024 at 06:45AM
The U.S. Department of Justice arrested the co-founders of cryptocurrency mixer Samourai for facilitating $2 billion in illegal transactions and laundering $100 million. They face 25 years in prison for money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Samourai’s features were designed to aid criminal activities, leading to arrests and service confiscation.
Meeting Takeaways:
– The U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrest of Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, co-founders of the cryptocurrency mixing service Samourai, for facilitating over $2 billion in illegal transactions and laundering more than $100 million in criminal proceeds.
– Rodriguez and Hill are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business from 2015 through February 2024, facing a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison each.
– Samourai’s Whirlpool service aimed to conceal the cryptocurrency transaction trail, while the Ricochet Send feature added intermediate hops to obscure the cryptocurrency’s origin, both marketed as increasing users’ privacy and protecting against financial surveillance.
– The DoJ alleges that Samourai openly courted users to circumvent sanctions and launder criminal proceeds, targeting groups like Russian oligarchs, online gamblers, and criminals seeking anonymity for illegal activities.
– The arrests come following the sentencing of Shakeeb Ahmed, a former security engineer, to three years in prison for hacking cryptocurrency exchanges and laundering stolen funds through Samourai Whirlpool.
– The operation involved law enforcement agencies from Iceland and Portugal, as well as Europol, resulting in the confiscation of Samourai’s digital infrastructure and the removal of its app from the Google Play Store in the U.S.