The US Department of Justice has wrapped up a $400 million forfeiture tied to Helix, a now-shuttered crypto mixing service that prosecutors say played a major role in laundering money for darknet marketplaces.
In a statement released Thursday, the DOJ said a final court order issued last week officially transferred ownership of the seized assets to the government. The haul includes cryptocurrencies, real estate, and financial accounts linked to Helix’s operations, marking one of the largest forfeitures ever connected to a crypto mixer.
Prosecutors: Helix Was Built to Hide Illicit Funds
According to prosecutors, Helix processed at least 354,468 bitcoin between 2014 and 2017, worth roughly $300 million at the time. The service was designed to obscure the origins of funds and was openly marketed to users who wanted anonymity — including buyers and sellers operating on illicit darknet markets.
Helix was run by Larry Dean Harmon, who pleaded guilty in August 2021 to conspiracy to commit money laundering. He was sentenced in November 2024 to three years in prison, followed by supervised release.
Authorities say the assets forfeited this week were directly tied to that laundering activity.
Mixers Face Growing Legal Pressure
The Helix case comes as crypto mixers and other privacy-focused tools remain under intense scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators. Officials argue these services make it easier to launder criminal proceeds, while critics warn that aggressive enforcement risks criminalizing privacy itself.
That debate has sharpened in recent months. In December, President Donald Trump said he was reviewing a potential pardon for Keonne Rodriguez, a co-founder of the Samourai Wallet mixing service who was sentenced to five years in prison on money laundering and unlicensed money transmission charges.
Attention has also focused on the case of Roman Storm, a developer linked to the Tornado Cash protocol, who was convicted last year on money laundering and sanctions-related charges and is still awaiting sentencing. The prosecution has drawn backlash from parts of the crypto community, including Vitalik Buterin, who has argued that privacy tools shouldn’t be treated as criminal simply because they can be misused.
Crypto Crime Still Rising
The forfeiture also lands amid growing concern about crypto-related crime more broadly. Chainalysis estimates that illicit crypto addresses received a record $154 billion in 2025, a sharp increase from the year before.
In a separate case, US prosecutors recently charged Ronald Spektor, a 23-year-old Brooklyn resident, with stealing about $16 million in cryptocurrency from roughly 100 Coinbase users. Authorities say Spektor posed as a Coinbase employee and used panic-driven phone calls to convince victims their funds were at immediate risk, pressuring them to transfer crypto to wallets he controlled.
The scheme relied less on hacking and more on psychology. Operating under the online alias “lolimfeelingevil,” Spektor allegedly exploited fear and urgency to override skepticism and force quick decisions.
