On Nov. 19, William “Bill” Hill, 67, co-founder of Bitcoin mingling service Samourai Wallet, was sentenced to four years in prison for running an unlicensed money transmission business that processed over $237 million in criminal proceeds, according to journalist Frank Corva.
Hill pleaded guilty in July in the Southern District of New York, admitting that the platform he co-founded was used to hide illegal 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 the Samourai Wallet to criminal users on darknet forums and internally acknowledged that its mixing process acted as “money laundering for Bitcoin.”
Authorities said the pair operated Samourai Wallet’s Whirlpool and Ricochet services to obscure the origins of criminal proceeds from drug trafficking, darknet marketplaces, fraud, cybercrime and even murder-for-hire operations.
Whirlpool coordinated Bitcoin exchanges between users, while Ricochet added multiple transaction “hops” to make tracking more difficult. From 2017 to 2019, over 80,000 Bitcoins — worth more than $2 billion at the time — flowed through the services and generated over $6 million in fees, prosecutors said.
Court records show that Rodriguez and Hill actively encouraged criminal use through Samourai Wallet, with Rodriguez describing the services as “laundering money for bitcoin” and Hill promoting Whirlpool on a darknet forum as making illicit funds “untraceable.”
They also publicly encouraged hackers to launder stolen funds after a social media hack in 2020, prosecutors alleged.
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 a $250,000 fine.
The case reflects a growing crackdown on privacy-focused crypto tools following similar prosecutions of developers of platforms such as Tornado Cash.
Hill expressed remorse at the sentencing, stating, “I am deeply remorseful and ashamed of what I did,” highlighting the increasing scrutiny of services designed to hide digital asset transactions.
Samourai Wallet CEO Verdict
As previously mentioned, Keonne Rodriguez, CEO of Samourai Wallet, was sentenced earlier this month to five years in prison for the same scheme.
Rodriguez’s sentence, handed down by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan, followed an hour-long hearing.
Rodriguez and Hill were arrested in April 2024 and charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmission business.
The Justice Department framed the case as part of a broader crackdown on crypto-mingling services, emphasizing the defendants’ active promotion of illegal money laundering, which undermined confidence in digital assets.