U.S. DOJ Finalizes $400M Helix Darknet Mixer Forfeiture

• A U.S. judge has ordered the forfeiture of funds linked to Helix Darknet Mixer.
• The long-lasting case involved over $400 million of drug-related funds.
• Helix’s founder was sentenced to 36 months in prison in November 2024.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has finalized the forfeiture of over $400 million in illicit transaction proceeds tied to Helix, a darknet crypto mixer connected to money laundering involving drug traffickers and other criminal elements.

A Thoroughly Investigated Case

In its latest press release, the DOJ stated that it obtained legal title to the assets in question last week after a final order by a federal judge on January 21. According to the announcement, multiple U.S. Security Departments participated in the investigation into Helix’s activities beginning from 2014, leading to a guilty plea by the darknet protocol’s founder, Larry Dean Harmon, in August 2021.

According to the DOJ, Helix’s activities involved blending cryptocurrency from multiple users and routing the funds through a series of transactions designed to obscure the funds’ sources, destinations, and owners. Helix was one of the top mixing services in the early days of the crypto industry, attracting several online drug dealers seeking to launder their illicit returns, according to the DOJ’s report.

Helix Founder’s Role and Punishment

As of the time of the investigation, Helix had processed approximately 354,468 bitcoins, equivalent to approximately $300 million on behalf of its customers. For his role and service delivery, Harmon retained a percentage of the transactions as commissions and fees for using the platform. For context, Helix operated as a search engine, Grams, to connect other major darknet markets. The platform’s API enabled a direct integration with Bitcoin withdrawal systems.

Despite Harmon’s August 2021 guilty plea, the court sentenced him to 36 months in prison in November 2024. Meanwhile, it has taken another 14 months for Judge Beryl A. Howell of the District Court for the District of Columbia to enter a final forfeiture order, declaring the assets forfeited to the government.

Judgement Well Served?

Ari Redbord, global head of policy and government affairs at TRM Labs, thinks the government is right with its treatment of Helix. According to Redbord, Helix is an example of a service built specifically to clean money from darknet markets, not a neutral privacy tool later misused, and taking it down treats that infrastructure like any other part of a criminal supply chain.

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