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Intro: A Ohio man has been charged guilty in a money laundering conspiracy case. He has pleaded guilty to the Washington D.C. federal court. He will surrender more than 4,000 bitcoins which are currently valued at $200 million. He has been charged for moving more than $300 million bitcoins to help users, including drug trafficking.
Larry Dean Harmon, a 38-year-old man from Ohio has been pleaded guilty in a money laundering conspiracy case. He has moved more than $300 million bitcoins to help users, including drug traffickers, hide the source of their cryptocurrencies.
Harmon has agreed to his crimes and has pleaded in the federal court of Washington D.C. According to the Ministry of Justice, more than 4,000 bitcoins were delivered and are currently valued at more than $200 million.
During the crime, Harmon was a resident of Belize nation who also faces a $60 million civil monetary penalty from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, as per the authorities. His sentence has not been finalized. He will face up to 20 years in prison and hundreds of millions of dollars in fines.
Darknet activity
The criminal has been using the darknet for his illicit activities. It is a collection of hidden websites from common web browsers and search engines. The nature of Darknet is anonymous, and it is mostly exploited by the criminals who trade weapons, narcotics and illegal services.
Harmon has admitted that his darknet based service, Helix, partnered with many Darknet markets, like AlphaBay, The Ministry of Justice stated that Evolution and Cloud 9 will provide customers with bitcoin money laundering services.
The Helix launched by Harman from 2014 to 2017 is called the Bitcoin mixer or tumbler. Helix sends bitcoins to the recipient to hide the person who sent the cryptocurrency and charge a fee. Helix was linked and associated with the darknet search called grams which was also run by Harmon. He advertised Helix to customers on the darknet to conceal transactions from law enforcement.
Prosecutors have said that Helix has moved more than 350,000 bitcoins valued at over $300 million at the time of the transactions for customers, with the largest volume coming from Darknet markets. Harmon also conspired with Darknet vendors and marketplace administrators to launder such bitcoins generated through illegal drug trafficking offences on those darknet marketplaces.
The Darknet is driven by the criminal marketplaces who use this place for goods and services.
With a background in journalism, Ritika Sharma has worked with many reputed media firms focusing on general news such as politics and crime. She joined The Coin Republic as a reporter for crypto, and found a great passion for cryptocurrency, Web3, NFTs and other digital assets. She spends a lot of time researching and delving deeper into these concepts around the clock, and is a strong advocate for women in STEM.
