Ohio Guy Steals $21 Million in Bitcoin From His Brother

We would not look forward to any holidays in that household.

Out of harmony

Talk about family drama.

As Decrypt reports, an Ohio resident named Gary James Harmon was sentenced Thursday to four years and three months in prison for stealing 712 Bitcoins from his brother, Larry Dean Harmon, back in 2020.

At the time of the theft, the Bitcoin would have been worth $4.8 million. By the time of Gary Harmon’s sentencing, the value of the coins had risen to a staggering $21 million plus – raising the stakes of the theft considerably.

The disgusting brothers

But this case is much more complicated than simple theft between siblings.

As it turns out, Larry Harmon has also has been convicted of crypto crimes, when he was arrested back in February 2020 for running a coin mixing service – basically a money laundering service that hides the origin of crypto funds – called Helix, which according to Decrypt processed approximately 350,000 Bitcoins between 2014 and 2017.

It’s probably not too surprising to learn that Larry’s operation was deeply woven into the market for illegal darknet drug sales. Law enforcement caught on, and according to a press release from the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the Helix owner was hit with a $60 million fine after pleading guilty to money laundering conspiracy.

And it was apparently in the midst of Larry’s legal troubles that Gary saw an opening to capture some valuable Bitcoin for himself, secretly transferring a number of his brother’s funds to the wallets before running them through two other coin mixers.

“Knowing that the government was seeking to recover the bitcoin stored on the seized device for forfeiture in Larry Harmon’s criminal case, Gary Harmon used his brother’s credentials to recreate the bitcoin wallets stored on the device and covertly transfer more than 712 bitcoins … to his own wallets – steal these funds and obstruct the ongoing criminal proceedings,” says a separate press release from the DOJ regarding Gary’s arrest.

While some argue that coin mixers are essential to ensuring crypto users’ privacy, couldn’t the Harmon brothers be better poster children — or, er, poster grown-up crypto-bros? — for the very good reasons law enforcement agencies really hate the controversial obfuscation services. (However, to that end, mixers have actually been banned in the US since 2022 as a result of a ruling against a popular mixing service called Tornado Cash.)

Either way, we definitely wouldn’t be looking forward to any vacations in the Harmon household, at least not anytime soon.

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