In Brief:
- An Ohio man has pleaded guilty to laundering over $300 Million worth of bitcoin to help users.
- Harmon agreed as part of his plea to surrender over 4,400 Bitcoin, valued at over $200M at today’s price.
Coin Ninja CEO Larry Dean Harmon has pleaded guilty to the money-laundering case. Ohio man (Harmon) moved over $300M of bitcoin to help users, including drug traffickers.
According to a statement from the Justice Department, Harmon’s operation also had ties to drug runners on the Dark Web.
Larry Dean Harmon also agreed to the forfeiture of over 4,400 bitcoin, valued at over $200M at today’s prices. And other seized properties that include money laundering conspiracy. He will be sentenced at a date to be scheduled and faces a maximum prison term of 20 years.
He was ordered to pay a fine of $500,000 or twice the property’s value involved in the transaction. Harmon could further be sentenced to a term of supervised release of not more than three years and mandatory restitution.
Harmon, who maintained a residence in Belize during his criminal activity, also faces a $ 60 million civil monetary penalty assessment. The penalty from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The Belize Ministry of the Attorney General and the Belize National Police Department provided support for the Investigation.
As part of a guilty plea, Harmon admitted that his Helix, Darknet-based services. Helix, which Harmon ran from 2016 through 2017, was known as the “mixer” or “trumbler” of bitcoin.
Helix partnered with various darknet markets, including AlphaBay, Evolution, and Cloud 9. Court documents showed that Helix was linked to and associated with “Grams,” a darknet search engine also run by Harmon.
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“The Darknet is driven in part by the criminal marketplaces which peddle their nefarious goods and services,” said Chief James C. Lee of the IRS Criminal Investigation. “Harmon profited by facilitating the back-channel support of these marketplaces and helped criminals lauder money they received via illicit activities.”
The Department of Justice adds that Harmon admitted to “conspiring with Darknet vendors and marketplace administrations to launder such bitcoins generated through illegal drug trafficking offenses on those Darknet marketplaces.”
