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An Ohio native is suspected of stealing millions of dollars of bitcoin from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). 31-year-old Gary Harmon recently pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and separate counts of obstruction of justice after allegedly stealing more than 700 individual bitcoin units from the agency.
Gary Harmon Pledges Guilty to Crypto Theft and Wire Fraud
The bitcoins in question were taken by law enforcement agents from Gary’s brother, Larry Harmon, who runs a darknet crypto-mixing service called Helix. Larry was arrested in 2020 and his money was soon confiscated.
In 2021, Larry Harmon pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering conspiracy. He was ordered to pay a fine of more than $60 million to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). He also entered into a plea deal that required him to forfeit all profits he had made and become an active informant for government agencies. It is not known whether his plea deal included a prison sentence.
It seems that while Larry is working with the government to try and rid the world of future crime lords, his brother is trying to take Larry’s place in the underworld of crypto scams and take back all the digital units that have been confiscated. Gary was originally employed by Coin Ninja, one of Larry’s companies, and had been stealing digital assets from his brother’s wallet.
It is thought he took money from this wallet on at least eight separate occasions in April 2020. The individual Trezor wallets holding the money that was later stolen were kept in a locker run by the IRS. The money was transferred to his own wallet and amounted to 712 bitcoins, which is worth just under $5.5 million units at the time of writing.
Prosecutors say Gary held the innocent card for a long time, claiming that he never took money from Larry’s wallet even when they provided evidence that clearly showed they were aware of his activities. They also say that before taking all of his money, Gary lived a very limited lifestyle and collected unemployment checks after his brother was arrested and he was terminated from Coin Ninja.
Living in Alms to Live It
To help with Larry’s trial, Gary said he had to set up a GoFundMe account to cover his legal fees and the family’s attorney’s fees. The page has been taken down.
Once he pooled the money from his brother’s account, he used about $1.2 million to buy a new luxury condo in the city of Cleveland in his native Ohio. He also spends lavishly on private jet flights and strip clubs. He has agreed to forfeit around $12 million in crypto but still faces 40 years in prison.
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