Samourai Wallet Developer Gets Five-Year Prison Sentence
Keonne Rodriguez, developer and co-founder of the privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet Samourai, has been sentenced to five years in federal prison for operating an unlicensed money transmission business that processed over $237 million in illicit transactions between 2015 and 2024.
Conviction and charges
Rodriguez pled guilty to conspiracy charges related to running an unregistered money service business in the United States. The court ruled that Samourai Wallet facilitated laundering operations linked to drug trafficking and darknet markets through its coin-mixing and transaction obfuscation tools.
His co-founder, William Lonergan Hill, is awaiting sentencing and faces the same charges. Both agreed to plead guilty to avoid harsher penalties under money-laundering statutes that could carry up to 20 years in prison.
Maximum penalty under federal law
Five years is the maximum sentence allowed for conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business under U.S. federal law. Prosecutors argued for the maximum, citing the wallet’s “critical role in laundering darknet revenues.” Rodriguez’s defense emphasized that Samourai was a privacy tool, not a criminal enterprise, but the court ultimately sided with the prosecution.
Impact on crypto-privacy tools
The sentence has sent shockwaves through the privacy-coin and wallet development community. Developers fear that the case could set a precedent for holding open-source creators liable for the misuse of their software. Industry analysts expect increased regulatory pressure on mixers, coin-join protocols and self-custody projects offering transaction-level anonymity.
A turning point for crypto regulation
Rodriguez’s conviction illustrates the U.S. government’s tightening stance on privacy-oriented financial tools. While law enforcement officials celebrate the verdict as a victory against crypto laundering, civil-liberty groups warn that it may discourage innovation in financial privacy. Observers now expect stricter oversight of non-custodial wallets and peer-to-peer infrastructure in the coming years.
Editorial Team — CoinBotLab