Hacker Admits Stealing Hundreds Of Bitcoins From IRS

January 7, 2023

Story: Mohd Javed

Cleveland man Gary Harmon, brother of Helix CEO Larry Harmon, pleaded guilty for unlawfully stealing 712 Bitcoins from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

He stole his brother’s forfeited crypto right out from under the IRS’s nose and spent it extravagantly.

The wire fraud charge carries a statutory maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Howell scheduled a sentencing hearing for March 17, 2023.

As per the court’s 2020 documents, the defendant’s brother was arrested for his operation in a darknet-based cryptocurrency money laundering service, known as a “mixer” or “tumbler.”

As Harmon later admitted, Helix laundered over 350,000 bitcoin – valued at over $300 million at the time of the transactions.

The law enforcement was initially unable to recover bitcoin stored on the device due to the device’s additional security features.