North American detained for alleged crypto laundering will be extradited – Criptoativos

The Judiciary Police detained a United States citizen as part of Operation “Samourai” – coordinated by the American authorities (FBI) -, who will be extradited to his country of origin, due to the existence of evidence of the crime of money laundering, specifically through cryptocurrencies, the PJ said in a statement. The extradition process takes place at the Lisbon Court of Appeal.

The authorities’ press release does not specify who the individual is, but in this Friday’s edition, Jornal de Notícias reveals that he is William Lonergan Hill, a 65-year-old man who was the technological director of the Samourai Wallet website between 2015 and 2024.

The North American citizen arrived in Portugal in the summer of last year, having previously “already resided in the European Union”, explained José Ribeiro, criminal investigation coordinator of the PJ’s national unit to combat cybercrime and technological crime, during the conference press about this case.

Negócios knows, however, that William Lonergan Hill decided to come to Portugal on his own and not at the invitation of a wider network, having even bought a house in the country. Contacted by Negócios, two sources with knowledge of the sector say that the individual was unknown to the crypto business sector in Portugal.

William Lonergan Hill is “the prime suspect in a network used on a large scale for money launderingwhich provided various services to its clients with the aim of laundering income from illicit activities”, explains the PJ’s note, which does not mention William’s name, referring only to a “North American citizen with a request for extradition “, who was already present at the first interrogation.

In total, the platform allegedly handled more than 1.6 billion in bitcoins, which were used in “ricochet” transactionsa method whose objective is to fade the origin of a transaction by allocating it to another starting point.

The company also offered the “whirlpool” service, which allowed a type of mixing of cryptocurrencies, involving funds that were potentially identifiable or “contaminated” with others, in order to erase the trail and make it impossible to identify the origin of the transaction. With this strategy it is also possible to make it difficult for authorities to freeze funds.

The operation was developed in several countries. In the USA, the founder and CEO of Samourai Wallet, Keonne Rodriguez, aged 35, was arrested, adds Jornal de Notícias.

In Portugal, specifically in Lisbon, the operation was carried out by the National Unit for Combating Cybercrime and Technological Crime of the PJ, which had the collaboration of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Federal Revenue Service (IRS-CI) of the USA.

In addition to the detention, they were “Several home searches were carried out [em Lisboa] which led to the seizure of material assets of high monetary value and a collection of databases which will allow us to determine the full scope of the facts and the complete incrimination of the perpetrators”, details the PJ.

During the press conference, in which he portrayed the details of this operation, José Ribeiro warned of the fact that, both nationally and internationally, an increase in money laundering, through the use of cryptoactives.

“There is, without a doubt, a growth [desta tendência] not only at national but also at global level. What happened before with ‘money mules’ [nome dado a quem transporta dinheiro para efeitos de branqueamento] repeats itself, today the procedure is the same, but in relation to cryptoactives”.

(News updated at 1:22 pm)