After years of legal drama, the federal case targeting the founders of privacy-centric crypto app Samourai Wallet is now reaching a critical juncture.
Samourai Wallet co-founders to plead guilty to money laundering charges
The outcome could influence the high-profile Tornado Cash case
Founders face up to 25 years in prison
According to court filings submitted on July 29, co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill are expected to officially plead guilty in a case that accuses them of laundering more than $100 million through their crypto wallet platform. The two were arrested back in April 2024 after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged they ran an unlicensed money transmission business and knowingly enabled illicit financial activity.
Prosecutors argue that Samourai Wallet was positioned as a “safe haven” for crypto mixing—a practice that scrambles transaction trails—allegedly providing cover for criminals to sidestep sanctions and regulatory oversight.
Following their arrest, Rodriguez and Hill initially pleaded not guilty, claiming the legal foundation of the case was flawed. At one point, it even seemed like they might win the upper hand. Defense attorneys revealed earlier this year that FinCEN, a key financial crimes agency, had privately concluded that Samourai did not qualify as a money transmitter—an important classification for regulatory purposes. The DOJ was accused of hiding this determination, fueling hopes that charges might be dropped altogether.
The guilty pleas now cast a long shadow over another controversial case—this one involving Roman Storm, co-founder of Ethereum-based crypto mixer Tornado Cash. Like the Samourai case, Storm is facing DOJ allegations that his platform facilitated illegal transactions, including funds later traced to North Korean hackers and sanctioned entities.
One of Storm’s colleagues, Alexey Pertsev, has already been sentenced in the Netherlands. Storm, however, maintains his innocence and is preparing for trial.
With the Samourai founders folding under legal pressure, experts warn it may embolden prosecutors to lean on this new precedent in the Tornado case, especially since both platforms were designed with user privacy—and by extension, anonymity—in mind.
The crackdown on privacy tools in crypto has sparked growing concern across the industry. Influential voices, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, have long argued that developers shouldn’t be criminalized for writing code. Advocates insist that privacy is a core principle of blockchain, and teams behind privacy tools can’t be blamed for how malicious actors use their innovations.
The announcement of the upcoming guilty pleas has reignited those debates. One user on X (formerly Twitter) warned the case could set a “dangerous precedent,” one that might scare future developers away from building privacy-centric applications altogether.
Rodriguez and Hill are scheduled to formally enter their guilty pleas on Wednesday, July 30, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
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