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The domain of the Samourai Wallet cryptocurrency wallet has shifted from the control of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to the hands of fraudsters. They have begun utilizing the site for phishing and Bitcoin theft, as reported by blockchain researcher Econoalchemist.
The website became active in March. According to Site24x7, the domain was registered through NameCheap and was updated on March 3, with an expiration date set for 307 days from that point. The current owner of the domain remains unknown, as the registration is protected by privacy safeguards.
The perpetrators replicated the design and content of the original site, including details about services and wallet creation, as confirmed by Bits.media.
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The official launch of the privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet Samourai Wallet took place in 2015. In April 2024, the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) conducted searches at the homes of the project’s founders, William Lonergan Hill and Keonne Rodriguez.
In August 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed charges against the wallet’s creators. They were accused of facilitating illegal money transfers and aiding in the laundering of over $2 billion, including through darknet markets. Consequently, the FBI seized the domain, and an official notice appeared on the site stating: “This site has been seized.”
In November, a court issued a ruling: William Hill received a four-year prison sentence, while Keonne Rodriguez was sentenced to five years.
The wallet offered three features that complicated transaction tracking:
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Whirlpool mixed users’ coins and severed links between transactions.
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Ricochet added several intermediary steps to transactions, making tracking more difficult.
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PayNym generated reusable payment codes, allowing for the creation of a new address for each transaction without revealing the wallet’s history.
Previously, the FBI reported on a fraudulent scheme within the Tron network. The fraudsters distributed tokens with text messages that appeared as official notifications from law enforcement agencies in blockchain explorers.
