Transcript of the Samourai Wallet devs responding to judge Cote asking for them to describe what they did in their own words during the plea agreement hearing.
The moment during the Samourai Wallet plea agreement hearing when judge Cote confuses the 1956 money laundering charge & 1960 unlicensed money transmitting charge, then nonchalantly brushes it off as "much the same thing" ☠️
Basically, prosecutors just need to establish the facts of the matter: the devs built a wallet, a hacker used the wallet to obscure the source of criminally derived coins, and the devs had knowledge of this. Package that all up as a conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business charge & if the defendants plead guilty (even a false confession) then the judge is spared from any critical thinking because she can just take the prosecutor's allegations as true.
None of that proves the prosecutor's interpretation of the law is correct, that would require a trial which was avoided here and anyone with half a brain in this space can clearly understand the defendants did not in fact transfer funds on behalf of the public as it was a non-custodial wallet and therefore could not be considered a money transmitting business. Hence the wording of the defendants' statements.
But for all intents & purposes of the plea agreement, the only issue here is whether or not there is evidence (even one example) that supports the allegation that the defendants are pleading guilty to. A hacker who used Samourai Wallet in this case:
