The U.S. Treasury Division’s Monetary Crime Enforcement Community (“FinCEN”) is now going through critical questions after a brand new courtroom submitting reveals it charged the builders of Samourai Wallet with working an unlicensed cash transmitter—regardless of being instructed by the related regulator that no license was required.
On Could 5, 2025, legal professionals for Samourai Wallet founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill filed a letter to Decide Richard Berman within the Southern District of New York disclosing that FinCEN explicitly instructed U.S. Division of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors in August 2023 that Samourai Wallet didn’t qualify as a Cash Companies Enterprise on account of its non-custodial nature. The DOJ moved ahead with the indictment anyway, and suppressed that exculpatory proof for over a 12 months.
“FinCEN’s guidance has generally focused on custody of cryptocurrency… Because Samourai does not take ‘custody’… that would strongly suggest that Samourai is NOT acting as an MSB,” wrote the lead prosecutor in a 2023 inner e mail simply revealed by the protection.
Regardless of this, Rodriguez and Hill had been arrested in April 2024 and accused of laundering over $100 million via Samourai Wallet, which allegedly facilitated $2 billion in illegal Bitcoin transactions. DOJ press releases on the time painted the service as a hub for darkish net cash laundering, with U.S. Legal professional Damian Williams stating that the defendants “knowingly facilitated the laundering of over $100 million of criminal proceeds.”
However protection attorneys now argue the federal government’s personal communication with FinCEN undercuts the central cost of working with no license. “The relevant regulator told the prosecutors that Samourai Wallet was not a money transmitter… and the prosecutors went ahead and indicted them anyway,” mentioned the Could 5 submitting.
The timing of this disclosure is very inconvenient, because it comes after the DOJ issued new inner steerage—referred to as “Ending Regulation by Prosecution” (the “Blanche Memo”)—explicitly barring prosecutors from charging non-custodial software program instruments with unlicensed cash transmission. “It’s hard to imagine a clearer example of regulation by prosecution,” the protection added. 
Zack Shapiro of the Bitcoin Coverage Institute summed it up in a viral tweet: “Just revealed: FinCEN explicitly told prosecutors Samourai Wallet wasn’t a money transmitter due to its non-custodial design; DOJ prosecuted developers anyway, suppressing exculpatory evidence for a year.”
The builders’ trial is ready to start on November 3, 2025. Within the meantime, their attorneys are requesting a listening to to think about the federal government’s Brady violation and the potential of dismissal.
To learn extra in regards to the courtroom submitting, see the total PDF beneath.
