U.S. obtains legal title to $400 million in assets tied to Helix cryptocurrency mixer

Date: Jan. 29, 2026

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

WASHINGTON — The United States last week obtained legal title to more than $400 million worth of seized cryptocurrencies, real estate, and monetary assets tied to the operation of the darknet mixing service Helix, announced U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro.

The assets were previously seized from Larry Dean Harmon, the operator of the Helix mixing service, which processed transactions involving over $300 million worth of cryptocurrency from 2014 to 2017.

“This case demonstrates that those who think the darknet provides a safe harbor for crime are dead wrong. My office, the Department of Justice, and our law enforcement partners will continue to hold criminals accountable—whether they act in broad daylight or hide behind a computer screen. We will find them, we will prosecute them, and we will cut them down.”

Harmon pleaded guilty in August 2021 to conspiracy to commit money laundering. He was sentenced in November 2024 to 36 months imprisonment, three years of supervised release, a forfeiture money judgment, and forfeiture of seized property. On Jan. 21, 2026, following the government’s settlement with a mortgage-holder on one of Harmon’s properties, Judge Howell of the District Court for the District of Columbia entered a final order of forfeiture, declaring the assets forfeited to the government.

According to court documents, Helix was one of the most popular mixing services on the darknet and was highly sought after by online drug dealers who needed to launder their illicit proceeds. Helix was connected to Grams, a darknet search engine also run by Harmon. Helix processed at least approximately 354,468 bitcoins — the equivalent of approximately $311,145,854 in U.S. dollars at the time of the transactions — on behalf of its customers. Much of those funds were coming from or going to darknet drug markets. Harmon retained a percentage of these transactions as his commissions and fees for operating Helix.

Grams and Helix were designed to connect to or otherwise support all of the major darknet markets at the time. Helix’s Application Program Interface (API) enabled darknet markets to integrate Helix directly into their bitcoin withdrawal systems. Investigators traced tens of millions of dollars from darknet markets to Helix.

Joining in the announcement were Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Chief of the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Guy Ficco, and FBI Assistant Director Brett Leatherman of the FBI’s Cyber Division.

The IRS-CI Cyber Crimes Unit and FBI Washington Field Office investigated the case, with valuable assistance for the investigation and seizure of assets provided by the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio.

The Attorney General’s Ministry of Belize and the Belize Police Department provided essential support for the investigation and seizure of assets, coordinated through U.S. Embassy Belmopan. The investigation was coordinated with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

This case was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Blaylock, Jr. of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Trial Attorneys C. Alden Pelker of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) and Christopher B. Brown of the National Security Division’s National Security Cyber Section (formerly of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia).

IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.