30s Summary

Larry Harmon, a man charged for money laundering via a cryptocurrency service called Helix, received a lighter three-year sentence after aiding authorities in an unrelated case. Harmon, who had shut down his platform before arrest, was also fined $60m and forfeited over $300 million in cash and assets. The service was utilized to clean over 350,000 Bitcoins and aid local cocaine dealers. Harmon’s brother Gary was also penalized for wire fraud and obstruction of justice, ordered to transfer $20 million in crypto and serve four years in jail.

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In 2020, a man named Larry Harmon was arrested for helping wrongdoers clean their dirty money through a crypto service named Helix. He’s been sentenced to three years in jail, a lighter sentence due to his help in another cryptocurrency case.

Although Harmon could’ve been locked away for up to 20 years, he got a lighter sentence. Why, you ask? He helped the feds in another case centered around Bitcoin Fog, another crypto platform. Plus, he expressed regret and had shut down his platform two years before getting busted.

The law didn’t go easy on his pocket, though. Harmon was slapped with a $60 million fine last year and had to give up more than $300 million in cash and other assets. This includes real estate, cryptocurrencies, and other stuff worth over $400 million.

In a nutshell, Harmon was accused of transferring over 350,000 Bitcoins via Helix. The value of this digital money was more than $300 million back then. To top it off, Harmon didn’t just do money washing but also helped local cocaine dealers to reach more customers more effectively.

Harmon was arrested in 2020 and admitted his guilt in 2021. He ran the Helix crypto service between 2014 and 2017, cleaning more than 350,000 Bitcoins in that timeframe. He also ran a darknet search engine called Grams that worked hand in hand with Helix. He initially tried to argue that Bitcoin wasn’t real money, so he couldn’t be accused of money laundering. But that didn’t fly.

In a twist, Harmon’s younger brother, Gary, was also busted. After Larry’s arrest, Gary used his brother’s passwords to transfer 712 Bitcoins (worth more than $5 million) to his own digital wallets. His punishment? He had to hand over $20 million in crypto and spent four years in the slammer for wire fraud and obstruction of justice.