The U.S. Department of Justice announced that Gary James Harmon, an Ohio man, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison for stealing 712 Bitcoins belonging to his brother.

Gary James Harmon pleaded guilty in January to one count each of wire fraud and persistent obstruction of justice, and faces a combined maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Gary James Harmon stole the 712 bitcoins after his brother Larry Dean Harmon was arrested in 2020. They were worth about $4.8 million at the time, but have now appreciated to $21 million.

Larry Dean Harmon was arrested for operating a token mixing service called Helix, which processed more than 350,000 Bitcoins from 2014 to 2017 and worked with multiple darknet markets.

Larry Dean Harmon later pleaded guilty in 2021 to conspiracy to commit money laundering and charges related to improper financial transactions. In addition to the criminal charges, he was also fined $60 million by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which also targeted currency mixing service operators. The first case in which a fine was imposed.

The Justice Department said that at the time, the government was seeking to recover Bitcoin stored in Larry Dean Harmon’s cold wallet, but Gary James Harmon knowingly re-created the Bitcoin wallet using his brother’s credentials and “secretly” removed the device. 712 Bitcoins were sent to himself, and then he further laundered the money through two other online token mixing service providers, and then used these funds to go shopping and pay for large expenses.

The Justice Department said law enforcement seized several crypto assets in the case, including: 17.4 million Dogecoins, approximately 647 Bitcoins, and 2 Ethereum coins, with a total value of more than $20 million.

While advocates of coin mixing services say such tools are necessary to maintain privacy in cryptocurrency transactions, governments have targeted these services as critical to combating hackers and bad actors.

Token mixing services mix various transactions together to confuse the source and destination of funds. The U.S. Treasury Department last summer announced sanctions against coin mixing service Tornado Cash, banning Americans from using the app.

Currently, cryptocurrency policy nonprofit Coin Center is suing the U.S. Treasury Department, accusing authorities of overstepping their authority by blacklisting the tool. Separately, a Dutch court recently ruled that Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev can be released on bail after nine months in detention.

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