Samourai Co-Founder Keonne Rodriguez Faces Another Prison Transfer After Drug Program Shut Down

Keonne Rodriguez, the co-founder of Samourai Wallet serving a five-year federal sentence, says he is facing yet another prison transfer — this time because the drug-treatment program he entered to shorten his sentence was deactivated at his current facility.

In a Sept. 24 post on X, Rodriguez said the warden at FCI McKean informed program participants that he and roughly 70 other inmates would be moved to facilities where the treatment remains available. The Federal Bureau of Prisons had not published a separate notice confirming the program’s shutdown at McKean at the time of reporting, so the details of the transfer rest on Rodriguez’s own account.

Why the program mattered to his sentence

Rodriguez entered the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Residential Drug Abuse Program, known as RDAP, because completing it can meaningfully reduce a federal sentence. Under current BOP policy, inmates sentenced to 37 months or longer may receive an early-release reduction of up to 12 months after finishing the residential treatment program.

For Rodriguez, who is serving five years, that maximum is theoretically in reach — but nothing is guaranteed. The BOP retains full authority over both eligibility and the size of any reduction, and the benefit is not automatic. Rodriguez said he had only recently settled into FCI McKean when inmates learned the program would no longer continue there, forcing participants to expect reassignment to institutions that still offer it.

His last transfer took 30 days for a four-hour distance

The prospect of another move follows what Rodriguez described as a month-long odyssey transferring from FPC Morgantown in West Virginia to FCI McKean in Pennsylvania — facilities roughly a four-hour drive apart. In a letter published by The Rage, Rodriguez wrote that the transfer began June 10 and involved buses, two flights and a stop at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City.

Rodriguez said he had requested permission to make the journey through a transfer furlough, citing his minimum-security status and the fact that he had self-surrendered to begin his sentence. He wrote that officials denied the request without explanation two days before the move began.

His account of the journey itself is grim. Rodriguez said officers placed him in ankle restraints and handcuffs secured to a waist chain before transporting him by bus to an airport. He described passing through detention facilities housing inmates of different security classifications and spending long stretches locked in cells. He called the experience the worst 30 days of his life, writing that he shared one cell with a man serving a murder sentence and slept with part of his body on a metal bunk after the foam mattress ran out. These descriptions are his personal account and have not been independently confirmed by the BOP.

The bureau says placement and transfer decisions depend on security classification, bed availability, program needs and medical requirements. Federal law directs the agency to house inmates reasonably close to their primary residences when practicable, but programming needs can override that preference — which is exactly what appears to be happening again.

The case that put him in prison

Rodriguez pleaded guilty in August 2025 to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Co-founder William Lonergan Hill received a four-year sentence. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said Samourai transmitted more than 237 million USD in traceable criminal proceeds through its services, linking the funds to darknet markets, fraud, cybercrime and sanctioned jurisdictions.

Samourai offered Whirlpool, which mixed Bitcoin transactions to obscure their trail, and Ricochet, which added extra hops between sending and receiving addresses. Prosecutors said more than 80,000 BTC — valued above 2 billion USD at the relevant time — moved through the services after their launches.

Judge Denise Cote sentenced Rodriguez on Nov. 6, 2025, imposing five years, three years of supervised release and a 250,000 USD fine. Rodriguez and Hill also paid approximately 6.37 million USD in forfeiture representing Samourai’s fees, according to the Justice Department. Before reporting to prison, Rodriguez sought public donations, saying legal expenses had left him more than 2 million USD in debt, while continuing to pursue presidential clemency.

Developer protections remain unresolved

Rodriguez’s case has kept a place in the broader debate over whether software developers should bear criminal liability for how their tools are used. That debate surfaced in Congress this year: the Senate’s CLARITY Act, which contained provisions aimed at protecting developers of self-hosted software, failed to advance on a 49-50 procedural vote in September.

Privacy advocates have pointed to the Samourai prosecution as a defining example of the stakes — a mixing service treated as an unlicensed money transmitter despite never holding customer funds in the traditional sense. Prosecutors countered that the service knowingly processed hundreds of millions in criminal proceeds.

For now, the policy fight continues without Rodriguez. His more immediate concern is procedural: another transfer, another unfamiliar facility, and the hope that the program credited with up to a year of his life will still be there when he arrives. His supporters, meanwhile, are watching whether the repeated disruptions affect his completion timeline at all.

The BOP has not commented publicly on Rodriguez’s account. Market snapshot at 12:00 UTC on Sept. 25: BTC 84,606 USD, ETH 2,716.64 USD, SOL 120.81 USD.