"Hill pleaded guilty in July in the Southern District of New York, admitting that the platform he co-founded was used to conceal illicit funds from activities including drug trafficking, darknet marketplaces, cyber intrusions, fraud, sanctioned jurisdictions, murder-for-hire schemes, and a child pornography website. His co-founder, Keonne Rodriguez, received a five-year sentence. Prosecutors said Hill and Rodriguez actively promoted Samourai Wallet to criminal users on darknet forums and internally recognized that its mixing process functioned as "money laundering for Bitcoin.""
"Authorities said the pair ran Samourai Wallet's Whirlpool and Ricochet services to obscure the origins of criminal proceeds from drug trafficking, darknet marketplaces, fraud schemes, cybercrime, and even murder-for-hire operations. Whirlpool coordinated Bitcoin exchanges between users, while Ricochet added multiple transaction "hops" to make tracing more difficult. From 2017 to 2019, over 80,000 Bitcoin - worth more than $2 billion at the time - flowed through the services, generating over $6 million in fees, prosecutors said."
"Court records indicate Rodriguez and Hill actively encouraged criminal use through Samourai Wallet, with Rodriguez describing the services as "money laundering for bitcoin" and Hill promoting Whirlpool on a darknet forum as making illicit funds "untraceable." They also publicly urged hackers to launder stolen funds following a 2020 social media hack, prosecutors contended. Hill's sentence was reduced due to his age and recent autism diagnosis, with the judge allowing him to serve three years of supervised release from Lisbon, and imposing"
William "Bill" Hill, 67, co-founded Samourai Wallet and was sentenced to four years in prison for operating an unlicensed money transmitting business that processed over $237 million in criminal proceeds. Hill pleaded guilty in July in the Southern District of New York, admitting that the platform concealed illicit funds from drug trafficking, darknet marketplaces, cyber intrusions, fraud, sanctioned jurisdictions, murder-for-hire schemes, and a child pornography website. Prosecutors said Hill and co-founder Keonne Rodriguez promoted Samourai Wallet to criminal users and knew its mixing process functioned as money laundering. From 2017 to 2019, over 80,000 Bitcoin flowed through Whirlpool and Ricochet, generating over $6 million in fees. Rodriguez received a five-year sentence. Hill received a sentence reduction due to age and a recent autism diagnosis and was allowed supervised release from Lisbon.
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