Bitcoin Developer Amir Taaki Deported from Singapore After Police Questioning

Amir Taaki Deported — Prominent Bitcoin privacy developer Amir Taaki was deported from Singapore on October 6, 2026, following six hours of police questioning about his work.

Taaki, a British-Iranian cypherpunk and early Bitcoin Core contributor, announced the incident on social media platform X. He claimed the “extralegal glow regime” had charged his friends with money laundering but had “nothing on me so they strike from the shadow.” The developer, known for his work on privacy-enhancing technologies like CoinJoin and stealth addresses, is currently working on a crypto privacy protocol called DarkFi.

This marks the latest in a series of international incidents for Taaki. He stated that in the past year alone, he has also been deported from Argentina and Mexico, and detained in Serbia and Japan. He believes he is on a sanctions list but cannot determine which country has listed him, as authorities never provide reasons for his detentions.

Taaki first faced significant scrutiny from British authorities after traveling to Syria in 2016 to fight against the Islamic State with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units. His contributions to Bitcoin include authoring BIP 0001, which established the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal process, and founding the UK’s first Bitcoin exchange.