FinCEN imposes $60M penalty vs. Helix Bitcoin mixer owner Larry Dean Harmon

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Therefore, Mr. Harmon is required to register Helix and Coin Ninja with FinCEN “to develop, implement, and maintain an anti-money laundering compliance program, and to meet all applicable reporting and recordkeeping requirements.”

However, he allegedly operated Helix and Coin Ninja as an exchanger of convertible virtual currencies by accepting and transmitting bitcoin in various ways.

Based on its investigation, FinCen found that. Mr. Harmon operated Helix as a bitcoin mixer or tumbler. He promoted his services on the darknet to allow customers to anonymously pay for illegal merchandizes or products including drugs, guns, and child pornography. The agency discovered that Helix conducted more than 1,225,000 for customers, at least 356,000 were bitcoin transactions.  He allegedly laundered more than $311 million dollars.

In addition, FinCEN found that Mr. Harmon Coin Ninja as an unregistered MSB and in the same manner as Helix.

FinCEN accused Mr. Harmon of a willful violation of the BSA

FinCEN’s investigation revealed that Mr. Harmon willfully violated the BSA’s registration, program, and reporting requirements by failing to register as MSB.