The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has finalized the forfeiture of over $400 million in cryptocurrency, real estate, and other assets linked to Helix, a darknet Bitcoin mixing service. The forfeiture was officially finalized on January 21, granting the government legal ownership of the seized assets.
Helix, operated by Larry Dean Harmon from 2014 to 2017, was designed to obscure the source and destination of Bitcoin. The mixing service processed approximately 354,468 Bitcoin, which was worth around $300 million at the time, mainly for darknet drug markets. According to the DOJ, Helix processed over 1.2 million transactions worth over $311 million.
Harmon was arrested in February 2020 and pleaded guilty in August 2021 to conspiracy to commit money laundering. In November 2024, he was sentenced to three years in prison, supervised release, and asset forfeiture. FinCEN imposed a civil penalty in October 2020 that remains unpaid.
The case marks a major victory in combating crypto crime. The U.S. government's civil case against Harmon was based on violations of the Bank Secrecy Act tied to Helix's operation. Prosecutors stated that Harmon ran Helix as an unregistered money services business that obscured the source of Bitcoin transactions. Court filings allege that Harmon never registered Helix with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, failed to implement an anti-money laundering program, and did not file any suspicious activity reports.
Helix was one of the most popular mixing services on the darknet and was highly sought after by online drug dealers seeking to launder their illicit profits. Helix's Application Program Interface (API) enabled darknet markets to integrate Helix directly into their bitcoin withdrawal systems. Investigators traced tens of millions of dollars from darknet markets to Helix.
Harmon also operated Grams, a search engine designed to support major darknet markets active at the time. After Helix, Harmon became CEO of Coin Ninja, a registered money services business that also offered crypto exchange services and promoted a separate mixing feature. Authorities noted that the service was used to move funds linked to drug sales, fraud, child exploitation, and extremist groups.
