The CEO of DropBit wallet developer company has been arrested. He is charged with laundering more than $ 300 million through darknet

Larry Dean Harmon, CEO of Coin Ninja, the developer of the DropBit bitcoin wallet, has been arrested by US authorities on suspicionin laundering more than $ 300 million through the now defunct darknet platform AlphaBay. He faces up to 30 years in prison.

According to Cleveland.com, 36-year-old Harmon was charged with conspiracy to launder money and manage an unlicensed money transfer service.

The most noteworthy point in the charge is the mention of the Helix coin mixing service, which also belongs to Harmon.

According to the prosecution, in the period from 2014 to 2017, Harmon sold illegal drugs through AlphaBay, conducting the received bitcoins through Helix.It is assumed that during this time, he laundered 354,468 BTC — $311 million at the timetransactions, or more than $3.7 billion at current prices.

The prosecution also claims that the Helix mixer wasone of the partners of AlphaBay, whose operators recommended their customers to use this particular service. It is alleged that Harmon promoted Helix as a tool to hide transactions from law enforcement.

In addition, CEO Coin Ninja owned an engine fora darknet search called Grams, often used in a single Helix bundle. Some customers have also used darknet markets such as AlphaBay, Agora Market, Nucleus, and Dream Market.

According to the totality of the charges, Harmon faces up to 30 years in prison. The prosecution also asks Harmon to be fined several million dollars and confiscate his property.

Soon after the news of Harmon’s arrest, the presenterPeter McCormack, a popular What Bitcoin Did podcast, said that although he appreciates financial privacy and personal freedom, he suspends DropBit ads on his site.

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He also said that he talked with his brother CEO CoinNinja Gary Harmon. According to the latter, Larry Harmon was denied access to freedom on bail, as the court considered the probability of his disappearance to be high. Moreover, he had already confiscated all funds, including $ 4,000 in bitcoins, which were in the Lightning node.

Recall, the AlphaBay site was closed in the summer2017 year. Before this market place was in the top 10 darknet in terms of the number of users and transaction volumes. Alphabay mainly sold narcotic substances, data from stolen bank cards, various databases, as well as all kinds of manuals and instructions for novice cybercriminals. Transactions on the site were carried out for bitcoins, Ethereum, Monero, Dash.