U.S. President Donald Trump is set to reassess the recent conviction of Samourai Wallet co-founders over admission and conviction in money laundering cases. In a recent press conference, Trump, who has managed to get the reputation of the ‘Crypto President’ this year, said he has heard about the case and that he plans to “look into it”.
The duo, as per the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, created a crypto mixer service called “Whirlpool” that would allow users to mix their crypto assets with a pool of other tokens and swap their holdings. This service would essentially let criminals break tracks of their transactions and facilitate illicit activities like money laundering. They have also been accused of running a service called “Ricochet” to let users insert random intermediate transactions between sending and receiving addresses to hinder transparency in financial logs.
In July this year, Samourai Wallet co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill pled guilty in federal charges accusing them of running an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
The two were arrested and indicted in April 2024. This November, Rodriguez and Hill were sentenced to five and four years in prison respectively. At first, the duo had submitted non-guilty pleas to the court but later transitioned them to guilty pleas.
Addressing the media President Trump said, “Okay, let’s take a look at it. You know, you’ll have to tell me. I don’t know anything about it, but we’ll take a look.”
Rodriguez is set to start his prison sentence this week. In a recent post on X he expressed gratitude to those bringing his case to President Trump’s attention.
Previously, the defence in the case had highlighted that perhaps Samourai did not need a transmission licence pointing to a July 2025 DoJ memo by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, that advised abandoning enforcement against crypto mixers for unwitting regulatory violations.
Rodriguez, in a recent sit down with Bitcoin educator Natalie Brunell, said that he has tapped his right to appeal for a plea despite not being completely sure if anything could work out.
Court filings from July had claimed that prosecutors had blamed the duo of being involved in laundering $237 million of illicit funds. In November, the Attorney’s office said that over 80,000 BTC valued at over $2 billion passed through Whrilpool and Ricochet.
For now, the domain for Samourai Wallet remains seized for further investigations. Both, Hill and Rodriguez have also been ordered to pay $250,000 in fines.
The reason why Samourai supporters are hopeful for a change in the case is because President Trump has granted pardons to Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) and darkweb marketplace Silk Route’s founder Ross Ulbricht in their respective cases of legal violations and crypto exploitation this year.
For now, it remains unclear when the White House would release President Trump’s decision in the case.