Ohio Guy Steals $21 Million in Bitcoin From His Brother

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Disharmony

Talk about family drama. As Decrypt reports, an Ohio resident named Gary James Harmon was sentenced to four years and three months in prison on Thursday for stealing 712 Bitcoin from his brother, Larry Dean Harmon, in 2020. At the time of the theft, the Bitcoin reportedly worth $4.8 million. By the time of Gary Harmon’s sentencing, however, the value of the coins had ballooned to $21 million, dramatically raising the stakes for the theft.

The Disgusting Brothers

But this case is much more complicated than a simple theft between siblings. It turns out that Larry Harmon has also been convicted of crypto crimes, as he was arrested in February 2020 for running a coin-mixing service, a money laundering service that obscures the origin of crypto funds dubbed Helix, which according to Decrypt processed approximately 350,000 Bitcoin between 2014 and 2017. It’s probably no surprise to learn that Larry’s operation was deeply entrenched in the market for illegal drug sales on the darknet. Law enforcement caught on and, according to a US Department of Justice (DOJ) press release, Helix’s owner was fined $60 million after pleading guilty to money laundering conspiracy. ‘money. And it was apparently in the midst of Larry’s legal troubles that Gary saw an opening to grab valuable Bitcoins, secretly transferring a number of his brother’s funds into his wallets before running them through two other coin mixers. . Knowing that the government was seeking to recover the bitcoin stored on the device seized for forfeiture in the Larry Harmon criminal case, Gary Harmon used his brother’s credentials to recreate the bitcoin wallets stored on the device and secretly transferring over 712 bitcoin…to his own wallets stealing those funds and obstructing the ongoing criminal forfeiture proceedings,” reads a separate DOJ press release regarding Gary’s arrest. people say that coin mixers are essential to ensuring the privacy of crypto users, the Harmon brothers couldn’t be better poster kids or, uh, poster crypto brothers? for the very good reasons why the law enforcement really hate controversial obfuscation services.(To that end, however, mixers have effectively been banned in the United States since 2022 following a ruling against a popular mixing service called Tornado Cash. ) In any case, we certainly wouldn’t be expecting a vacation at The Harmon House, at least not anytime soon. More About Crypto Crimes: Crypto Guy Forced To Sell Monkeys After Falling Into Scam

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