A US court has sentenced Gary James Harmon, the brother of the crypto mixing service Helix operator, to four years and three months in prison, for stealing over 712 bitcoin, which were subject to forfeiture in a then-pending criminal case.
The Bitcoins were linked to Helix, an online Bitcoin mixture run by Larry Harmon, Gary Harmon’s brother. Gary effectively transferred those Bitcoins, then valued at $4.8 million, using his brother’s credentials to a wallet he controlled to prevent law enforcement from forfeiting them. He then used two Bitcoin mixing services to hide the trail to these Bitcoins before using them to ‘finance large purchases and other expenditures.’
Gary’s brother, Lary Harmon, was arrested in February 2020 for laundering over 350,000 Bitcoin, valued at over $300 million at the time of the transactions, for his customers. Most of these Bitcoins came from darknet marketplaces. Lary pled guilty to charges of money laundering conspiracy in August 2021.
At the time of Lary’s arrest, law enforcement seized various assets, including a cryptocurrency storage device containing illegal proceeds generated through the operation of Helix. It was that time when Gary stole a part of those Bitcoins by transferring them to another wallet.
Gary has now agreed to the forfeiture of cryptocurrencies
