Ohio man steals over $12,000,000 worth of Bitcoin (BTC) from IRS and faces 40 years in prison: report
An Ohio man faces decades in prison after pleading guilty to stealing millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin (BTC) from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Gary Harmon, 31, of Cleveland, Ohio, faces 40 years behind bars for stealing digital assets originally confiscated by authorities from his brother, according to a new press release from the US Department of Justice (DOJ).
Gary Harmon has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and obstruction of justice after stealing 712 Bitcoin worth approximately $12 million at the time of writing. Authorities had previously seized the BTC from Harmon’s brother, who pleaded guilty to the money laundering conspiracy in August 2021.
According to the DOJ, Harmon admitted to using his brother’s credentials to access and steal the Bitcoin, implying that he knew the seed phrases or private keys needed to remotely access the BTC.
In February 2020, Larry Harmon, Gary Harmon’s brother, was arrested for laundering millions of dollars worth of virtual assets through Helix, a dark web money laundering operation. A crypto storage device was confiscated at the time of his arrest, although officials were unable to crack its security to access the bitcoin on it. Bloomberg reported that the crypto storage device was held by the IRS.
According to the press release, Gary Harmon transferred the bitcoin to his own wallet and then laundered the BTC using coin mixers.
On Jan. 6, Gary Harmon pleaded guilty to his charges and agreed to forfeit the stolen bitcoins.
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