The U.S. Treasury Division’s Monetary Crime Enforcement Community (“FinCEN”) is now dealing with severe questions after a brand new court docket submitting reveals it charged the builders of Samourai Pockets with working an unlicensed cash transmitter—regardless of being informed by the related regulator that no license was required.
On Might 5, 2025, attorneys for Samourai Pockets founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill filed a letter to Decide Richard Berman within the Southern District of New York disclosing that FinCEN explicitly informed U.S. Division of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors in August 2023 that Samourai Pockets didn’t qualify as a Cash Companies Enterprise attributable to its non-custodial nature. The DOJ moved ahead with the indictment anyway, and suppressed that exculpatory proof for over a 12 months.
“FinCEN’s steerage has typically centered on custody of cryptocurrency… As a result of Samourai doesn’t take ‘custody’… that will strongly counsel that Samourai is NOT performing as an MSB,” wrote the lead prosecutor in a 2023 inside e-mail simply revealed by the protection.
Regardless of this, Rodriguez and Hill have been arrested in April 2024 and accused of laundering over $100 million via Samourai Pockets, which allegedly facilitated $2 billion in illegal Bitcoin transactions. DOJ press releases on the time painted the service as a hub for darkish internet cash laundering, with U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams stating that the defendants “knowingly facilitated the laundering of over $100 million of felony proceeds.”
However protection attorneys now argue the federal government’s personal communication with FinCEN undercuts the central cost of working and not using a license. “The related regulator informed the prosecutors that Samourai Pockets was not a cash transmitter… and the prosecutors went forward and indicted them anyway,” mentioned the Might 5 submitting.
The timing of this disclosure is very inconvenient, because it comes after the DOJ issued new inside steerage—generally known as “Ending Regulation by Prosecution” (the “Blanche Memo”)—explicitly barring prosecutors from charging non-custodial software program instruments with unlicensed cash transmission. “It’s laborious to think about a clearer instance of regulation by prosecution,” the protection added. 
Zack Shapiro of the Bitcoin Coverage Institute summed it up in a viral tweet: “Simply revealed: FinCEN explicitly informed prosecutors Samourai Pockets wasn’t a cash transmitter attributable to its non-custodial design; DOJ prosecuted builders anyway, suppressing exculpatory proof for a 12 months.”
The builders’ trial is about 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 for dismissal.
To learn extra concerning the court docket submitting, see the complete PDF under.
