DOJ finalises $400M Helix Bitcoin forfeiture

The United States Department of Justice has finalised the forfeiture of more than $400 million in cryptocurrency and other assets linked to Helix, an early bitcoin mixing service tied to darknet markets.

A final order issued on Jan. 21 by the US District Court for the District of Columbia transferred legal title of the seized crypto, real estate and financial assets to the federal government.

The assets were taken from Larry Harmon, the operator of Helix, which ran from 2014 to 2017 and was designed to obscure the source and destination of bitcoin transactions connected to illicit marketplaces.

According to the DOJ, Helix processed at least 354,468 bitcoin during its operation, worth about $300 million at the time, and enabled large-scale money laundering for darknet drug markets.

Investigators said the service’s application programming interface allowed marketplaces to integrate the mixer directly into withdrawal systems, while Harmon also ran Grams, a search engine supporting major darknet platforms.

Harmon was arrested in February 2020, pleaded guilty in August 2021 to conspiracy to commit money laundering and was sentenced in November 2024 to three years in prison, with the court ordering forfeiture of the assets.

The case, which also involved Harmon’s cooperation in the Bitcoin Fog prosecution, marks the conclusion of one of the most significant early US enforcement actions against crypto mixing services.

At the time of reporting, Bitcoin price was $82,927.30.