[2016-01-12] Grams & Helix previous owner arrested for money laundering 350k BTC

[LeGaulois]

Do you remember Helix and Grams? The search engine and mixer. The founder was arrested recently accused to provide money laundering tools as you can guess. They accuse him of money laundering on 350,000 Bitcoins with Agora, Nucleus, Alphabay, and some marketplaces, money transmitting without a license, etc..

Larry Dean Harmon faces several charges detailed in an indictment handed up by a grand jury in Washington, D.C. Federal prosecutors say Harmon, 36, ran a service that allowed customers to send bitcoin and obscure its origin. Such services are known as “mixing” or “tumbling.”

Federal prosecutors say Harmon’s operation, called Helix, partnered with the online underground marketplace AlphaBay to provide money laundering for customers who accessed the marketplace through the darknet, which is not accessible through internet browsers used by most of the public.

The authorities want to seize all the real estate Harmon owns and the millions he acquired since. They also raided a house in Belize

He owns other businesses, Dropbit/Coininja, I don't know who's behind Helix & Grams but it isn't him anymore since a long time now

https://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/2020/02/bath-township-man-ran-service-that-laundered-311-million-in-bitcoin-for-darknet-transactions-feds-say.html

https://mondovisione.com/media-and-resources/news/us-department-of-justice-ohio-resident-charged-with-operating-darknet-based-bit/

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[squatter]

The indictment refers to a direct partnership between Helix and AlphaBay, and possibly others as well. That probably covers the conspiracy to launder money charge.

If I'm not mistaken, the other two charges for unlicensed money transmission establishes the first time a mixer has been targeted under FinCEN's 2019 guidance.

You've got to love that retroactive enforcement!

[bbc.reporter]

@LeGaulois. You forgot to include the date of news on the title. Moderators might delete this thread.

In any case, this is bad news for the freedom and the right for privacy for the whole cryptospace if upheld. Also, what does this imply for Dropbit and Coininja? According to Crunchbase, Coininja invested $2 million on Bitrefill. What does this also imply for Bitrefill?

[LeGaulois]

@LeGaulois. You forgot to include the date of news on the title. Moderators might delete this thread.

In any case, this is bad news for the freedom and the right for privacy for the whole cryptospace if upheld. Also, what does this imply for Dropbit and Coininja? According to Crunchbase, Coininja invested $2 million on Bitrefill. What does this also imply for Bitrefill?

Done

At the same time, I noticed @xtraelv created a topic in 'Bitcoin Discussion' sorry, so maybe better to continue there.
As for Dropbit, they could consider the money used to create it come from the millions from Helix