US authorities have released the indictment of the founders of the cryptocurrency site Samourai Wallet, used to launder millions of euros.
TheJudicial Police (PJ) cooperated with the FBI in the arrest of an American man in Lisbon, suspected of laundering millions of euros through the cryptocurrency website Samourai Wallet, which he created in co-authorship with another suspect, also already arrested, in the USA.
According to the US authorities, who released the indictment, the man arrested in Lisbon is named William Lonergan Hill, is 65 years old, and is not only the founder of Samourai Wallet but also the company’s Chief Technology Officer.
The suspect, who was arrested on the morning of Wednesday, April 24, allegedly used the site to launder criminal wealth, moving more than a billion dollars in bitcoins and more than 680 million dollars in BTC.
The suspect arrested in the US, Keonne Rodriguez, is 35 years old. The company’s co-founder and CEO was also ‘caught’ in Pennsylvania on Wednesday morning.
Both have already been broughtbeforeajudgefor questioning and are being held in pre-trial detention. William is now awaiting extradition to the USA.
For its part, Samurai Wallet was shut down and the servers as well as the domain seized. According to the US authorities, the Google Play Store has also been served with a “warrant to seize the Samurai app” so that it is no longer available for download.
In a publication shared by the New York State Department of Justice, US Attorney Damian Williams explains that this is money laundering “on a grand scale”.
Providing criminals with “virtual refuge” for 10 years
James Smith, head of the FBI, reveals that the suspects had been carrying out this criminal activity “for 10 years” and that they were “providing other criminals with a virtual haven for the clandestine exchange of illicit funds”.
“The FBI is committed to catching all these secret financial schemes and ensuring that no one can hide behind a screen to perpetuate financial irregularities,” he added.
According to the US authorities, the suspects attracted “other criminals” via the social network X, formerly Twitter. For example, in July 2022, when the war in Ukraine had already begun, they welcomed “new users of the Samourai Wallet Russian oligarchs”, in clear disregard for the sanctions applied by Europe and the USA.
Both risk a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The Judicial Police (PJ) arrested a man for running website to launder criminal wealth
