William Lonergan Hill
Co-founder and CTO of Samourai Wallet. He pleaded guilty in 2025 to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business and was sentenced to four years in prison; the judge cited his age and an autism diagnosis as mitigating factors.
Also known as: William Hill, William Lonergan Hill
Note: Hill pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitter (the money-laundering count was dropped).
Bio
William Lonergan Hill co-founded Samourai Wallet and served as its CTO, building its Whirlpool/Ricochet privacy tools. Prosecutors said he promoted Samourai on the darknet forum Dread as a way to "clean dirty BTC." [1][2]
Legal outcome
Arrested in Portugal in April 2024 and later extradited, Hill pleaded guilty in July 2025 and, on November 19, 2025, was sentenced to 48 months in prison plus a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release; the court applied a downward variance citing his age (67) and a recent autism-spectrum diagnosis. [1][2]
Bracketed numbers refer to the numbered sources listed below.
Linked scams & cases
Sources (2)
See also
- Blockchain Terminal (BCT)TokensA 2017–2018 ICO (BCT tokens, ~$30M) for a 'Blockchain Terminal' — a Bloomberg-style crypto trading terminal. The SEC and DOJ said convicted ex-hedge-funder Boaz Manor secretly ran it under a fake identity ('Shaun MacDonald'), using associate Edith Pardo as a front, and lied about the product's adoption.
- Dropil (DROP)TokensAn ICO for the DROP token built around a fake 'Dex' trading bot. The SEC said it raised ~$1.9M while claiming $54M from 34,000 investors, and that the founders falsified evidence during the probe. Founders Jeremy McAlpine and Zachary Matar pleaded guilty to securities fraud (36 and 30 months).
- CluCoin (CLU)Tokens
This page was last updated on Jun 8, 2026. View revision history.