Key Points
- The US DOJ arrested the founders of Samourai Wallet privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet and mixer.
- The charges include money laundering and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ), Southern District of New York, announced the arrest of Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, founders of privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet and mixer Samourai Wallet.
Rodriguez is the CEO, and Hill is the CTO of Samourai.
They have been charged with money laundering and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
According to the official notes coming from DOJ, the business “executed over $2 billion in unlawful transactions and laundered over $100 million in criminal proceeds.”
The notes allege that the transactions facilitated money laundering from illegal dark web markets such as Silk Road and Hydra Market, a web-server intrusion, a spearphishing scheme, and schemes to defraud multiple decentralized finance protocols.
DOJ also noted that Samourai’s web servers and domain were seized. Also, a seizure warrant for Samourai’s mobile application was served on the Google Play Store. As a result, the application will no longer be available to be downloaded from the Google Play Store in the United States.
According to US attorney, Damian Williams, Rodriguez and Hill are responsible for developing, marketing and operating Samourai, a crypto mixing service that executed over $2 billion in “unlawful transactions” and served as a “haven for criminals to engage in large-scale money laundering.”
They also mentioned the company’s disregard for regulation and concluded that Samourai Wallet is closed for business.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge said that threat actors are using technology to evade law enforcement detection and create environments conducive to criminal activity.
Edward Snowden addresses financial privacy
On his X account, Edward Snowden addressed the latest DOJ move. He said that the DOJ has once again criminalized the developers of an application that restores financial privacy.
He highlighted that the way to fix this is to make money private by default. Snowden said that privacy must never be exceptional, because it will be made criminal.
The Department of "Justice" has once again criminalized the developers of an app that restores financial privacy. The way to fix this it to make money private by default. Privacy must never be "exceptional," or they will make it criminal.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 24, 2024
Recently, Snowden raised awareness about how the NSA is just a few days from “taking over the Internet,” but no mainstream media addresses the issue.
In his post on X, Snowden cited Elizabeth Goitein, who addressed a bill in danger of becoming law that would have any company or individual that offers any service be forced to assist in NSA surveillance.
The importance of privacy has also been addressed by the Telegram CEO, Pavel Durov, who said that Bitcoin and crypto-like innovative technologies can ensure ways to fight the monitoring of people’s Internet activity that breaks the fundamental right to privacy.