The US government has taken down Samourai Wallet, a cryptocurrency mixing service that executed over $2billion in unlawful transactions and laundered over $100m in criminal proceeds.
According to a press release by the US Department of Justice (DoJ), Samourai’s web servers and domain were seized following a law enforcement operation in collaboration with Iceland’s authorities.
Additionally, the illegal cryptocurrency service’s Android app has been removed from the Google Play Store in the US.
The DoJ also revealed that Samourai’s two co-founders, CEO Keonne Rodriguez and CTO William Lonergan Hill, have been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
US Attorney Damian Williams stated that Rodriguez and Hill are responsible for developing, marketing, and operating Samourai, and are allegedly knowingly facilitated the laundering of over $100m of criminal proceeds from the Silk Road, Hydra Market, and a host of other computer hacking and fraud campaigns.
Rodriguez and Hill were arrested on April 24 in the US and Portugal, respectively.
Samourai Wallet was a mobile-first cryptocurrency mixing service combining multiple features to execute anonymous financial transactions. The app which was operational since 2015, has been downloaded over 100,000 times.
After downloading Samourai, the users could store their private keys for any Bitcoin addresses they controlled inside the Samourai program.
These private keys were not shared with Samourai employees, but Samourai operated a centralized server that, among other things, supervised and facilitated transactions between Samourai users and created new Bitcoin addresses used during the transactions.
In addition to crypto mixing services, Samourai also offered a service called “Ricochet,” which allowed users to send cryptocurrency using additional and unnecessary intermediate transactions to thwart law enforcement and crypto exchange efforts to track funds sourced from criminal activity.
This money laundering activity allegedly earned the two founders around $4.5 million in fees for Whirlpool and Ricochet transactions.
Samourai was used by customers all over the world, including customers located in the Southern District of New York, where the indictment took place.
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