Who are Samourai Wallet's Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill?

Samourai Wallet has had its website seized, its app removed from the Google App Store, and two of its lead developers — Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill — arrested.

According to a press release from the Department of JUStice (DoJ), 35-year-old Rodriguez and 65-year-old Hill helped to move $100 million worth of laundered funds and facilitated over $2 billion worth of unlawful transactions.

Samourai Wallet, a cryptocurrency mixing service, was well-known in the industry for its abrasive social media presence and for flouting rules and regulations. It also welcomed Russian oligarchs to the platform when US sanctions began.

According to Rodriguez’s LinkedIn profile, he’s an Oxford graduate, and Hill says he attended the French National Conservatory of Arts. The pair are listed as directors of a now-dissolved UK company called Katana Cryptographic LTD and both claim to have held positions at a company called Consign Holdings AB.

Read more: Vitalik Buterin endorses one of North Korea’s favorite Coin Mixers, Railgun

What else do we know?

Last year a Toronto-based cryptocurrency investment company called Cypherpunk Holdings apparently invested over $100,000 CAD in Samourai Wallet, though how it planned to earn money on the investment is unclear. Additionally, Hill was CTO at Soie LLC, a Wyoming-based company that was “seed funding privacy projects.” The X profile for the company is simply retweets of endorsements for Samourai Wallet.

It’s also worth noting that while the ‘samouraiwallet dot com’ website shows a seizure notice from numeroUS governmental agencies, the actual domain listed by the DOJ — samouraiwallet dot io — doesn’t have a seizure notice and is simply a broken link.

This may have to do with the fact that the US almost exclusively seizes dot com, dot net, and dot org domains.

Additionally, other services created by the developers at Samourai, such as its blockchain explorer OXT, are still up and running.

Rodriguez and Hill face two charges, one for conspiracy to commit money laundering (which carries a possible 20-year sentence) and another charge for conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. This carries a possible five-year sentence.

Got a tip? Send US an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow US on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Binance Australia raided by regulator just weeks after Europe HQ raid

Binance Australia’s offices have been raided by the nation’s finance regulator in an ongoing investigation into unlawful derivatives dealings — just weeks after the crypto exchange’s offices in France were raided as part of a money laundering probe. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) searched Binance locations on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. The outlet cited anonymous sources familiar with the matter, who chose to keep their identities concealed. An ASIC spokesperson said it could neither confirm or deny the reports. Binance stated that it’s “fully cooperating” with local authorities. The news comes after Binance Australia had its derivatives license revoked in April. According to ASIC, it’s investigating the “extent of consumer harms” caused by the crypto exchange to local users. ASIC is probing allegations of Binance incorrectly classifying retail and wholesale investors in its derivatives business. Binance Australia ’s fiat on-ramp services we...
Read more

Toncoin (TON) Rallies 15% After Binance Listing: $10 Soon?

Image
The world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, Binance, has announced that it will begin spot trading for Toncoin (TON) from today. The development has led to a significant price rally for TON, which witnessed a 15% price bump following the news. The daily charts show that the asset is currently up by 8.4%. TON continues to glow red in the other time frames, falling 7.8% in the last week, 5.7% in the 14-day charts, and 14.2% over the previous month. Also Read: Toncoin (TON): The Telegram-Linked Crypto to Watch in 2024 Current Performance and Market Position Source: CoinGecko TON is currently the second-best performing cryptocurrency among the top 100 projects by market cap in the daily charts, following XRP. Recent Price Movements TON has displayed incredible performance this year. The asset was trading at around $2 in late February but has since risen to over $6. Based on the Telegram network, TON saw a significant price increase after integrating into the Telegram messaging plat...
Read more

copycat Stars Arena patches exploit on Friend.tech following a financial drain

Image
The Stars Arena has made a significant announcement, revealing that malevolent forces have been siphoning funds through a cunning loophole. However, the team has swiftly taken action, successfully patching the contract to avert any further harm. As per reports circulating on social media, the Stars Arena Web3 social media platform on the Avalanche network has fallen victim to a malicious attack. This unsettling incident was brought to light by a Stars Arena user, Lilitch.eth, on October 5, who took to X (formerly Twitter) to declare that over $1 million had been lost as a result. The Stars Arena team has unequivocally acknowledged this audacious attack, characterizing it as nothing short of a “war” waged against their platform. Surprisingly, they assert that the actual losses incurred amount to a mere $2,000, affirming that they have successfully plugged the exploit . Stars Arena, much like the popular Friend.tech, empowers users to acquire “shares” in the f...
Read more