The founders of the Samorai Wallet (Samorai) Cryptocurrency Mixer have convicted criminals for laundering of over $ 200 million.
Samorai CEO Keon Rodriguez and CTO William Loanegon Hill Accepted for their participation In Samorai Money Laundering Operation, convicted for conspiracy to operate a business that operates criminal income business, and is now facing a maximum five -year prison sentence.
As part of their petition agreements, Rodriguez and Hill have also agreed to forcibly perform $ 237,832,360.55.
Both defendants were arrested in April 2024 and were accused by the US Department of Justice with two cases of conspiracy: unlicensed money-transport business (with maximum sentence of 5 years) and money laundering (with a maximum sentence of 20 years).
The day he was arrested, the Icelandic law enforcement also confiscated Samorrai’s domain (.) Com and Samorai (.) IO) and server, while Google removed the Android mobile app from Play Store after serving a seizure warrant.
While this operation was active, the Samorai Wallet Mobile App was downloaded more than 100,000 times, allowing users to operate anonymous financial transactions.
As Court documentRodriguez and Hill have also promoted Samorai as a tool to hide illegal income, clearly acknowledged its ability for illegal use. In one example, Rodriguez mentioned “Mixing” as “Money Laundering for Money Laundering” at WhatsApp Exchange.
Hill advertised Samorai on a dark web forum as a way of “unattractive” and also advertised for “cleaning BTC”, admitting that the customers of the service included dark and gray market participants among the customers.
In mid -2020, Rodriguez and Hill also tracked the income from a major hack and urged the hackers to use the vortex service of Samorai instead of reporting the crime. When hackers chose a separate service, both expressed disappointment on social media.
Between 2015 and February 2024, criminals used the whirlpool bitcoin mixing services of Samorai to process cyber infiltration, illegal dark web markets, a spear fishing scheme, and the plan to prevent decentralized finance protocols to prevent the schemes.
In addition to its Crypto Mixing Services, Samorai also offered “recocrats”, a service that allowed users to send cryptocurrency through unnecessary intermediate transactions and failed law enforcement and track efforts to repay the efforts of Critical activities.
Two money laundering services allegedly raised a fee of over $ 6 million from whirlpool and recochet transactions for both founders.
“Defendants built and operate a cryptocurrency mixing service, which they knew that criminals were able to wash millions of dirty money, including Cryptocurrency theft, drug trafficking operations and income from fraud schemes,” Said Attorney for the United States Nicholas Ros in a press release on Wednesday.
IRS-CI special agent Harry T. Chawis, Junior said, “Rodriguez and Hill accepted to operate a business that broadcast businesses, which ‘washing’ over $ 200 million in ‘dirty’ money for criminals. Washing more than $ 200 million. He did not only provide this illegal movement of money, but also encouraged it.
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