Coin Ninja, Dropbit Founder Charged For Laundering 354k Bitcoin For Darknet Market AlphaBay

Cleveland, Ohio Judge charges defendant over 30 years in prison for laundering over $300 million using Bitcoin (BTC) on a dark web marketplace, Alphanet.

According to an official filing from the United States District Court for the District Of Columbia, Larry Dean Harmon (defendant) was charged with conspiracy to launder money instruments and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business in Cleveland, Ohio. Larry operated a mixing platform, Helix, which allowed users on Alphanet, a dark web marketplace, to buy and sell illegal items such as drugs and guns.

Since 2014, the mixing platform, Helix allowed users to mask their Bitcoin payment transactions allowing it to boom on darknet marketplaces such as AlphaNet, AlphaBay and Nucleus. In three years the mixing platform had laundered over 354,000 BTC (~$300 million USD at the time of transaction) on various darknet websites which led to FBI shutting down the platform.

According to Peter McCormack, who spoke to his brother, Gary Harmon, the judge has denied Larry bail, considering him a flight risk. The FBI have further retrieved over $4,000 in BTC from their Lightning node channel and froze all of his assets on Coin Ninja.

3/ Larry has been denied bond as he is considered a flight risk even though they have confiscated all his assets.

Also, all Coin Ninja assets have been frozen and @garmon2525 believes that the FBI has removed $4k of Bitcoin from their lightning node.

— Peter McCormack (@PeterMcCormack) February 13, 2020

The Bath Township man faces 30 years in prison with the prosecutor asking the courts co confiscate his assets and pay up millions of dollars in compensation.