"Man Gets Four Years for Stealing Bitcoins Seized by Feds"

An Ohio man has recently been sentenced to four years and three months behind bars after stealing 712 bitcoin ($21m), which were seized by investigators following the arrest of his brother.  According to the Department of Justice (DoJ), Gary James Harmon, 31, of Cleveland, stole the cryptocurrency, which was the subject of “pending criminal forfeiture proceedings” in the case of his sibling, Larry Dean Harmon.  Larry Harmon was arrested in February 2020 for operating a dark web cryptocurrency mixer known as Helix.  It was used to launder over 350,000 Bitcoin, valued at the time of the transactions at over $300m, but which are now worth $10.3bn.  The DoJ noted that the funds came from customers operating on dark web markets.  During Harmon’s arrest, law enforcers seized a cryptocurrency storage device containing funds generated by Helix, which were subject to forfeiture, meaning they were confiscated by the state.  However, investigators were unable to recover the Bitcoin stored on the device due to built-in security features.  The DoJ stated that Gary Harmon used his brother’s logins to recreate and access the wallets stored on the device, transferring over 712 bitcoin to his own wallet.  The digital currency was worth $4.8m at the time but is worth many times more today.  Gary Harmon then laundered these funds through two online Bitcoin mixers before using the digital currency to finance some large purchases.  Following his arrest, he subsequently agreed to forfeit to the state the crypto he stole, including over 647 Bitcoin, 2 Ethereum, and 17.4 million Dogecoin, which have a combined value in excess of $20m.  Larry Harmon pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy in his case in August 2021.

Infosecurity reports: "Man Gets Four Years for Stealing Bitcoins Seized by Feds"