Larry Harmon, CEO of Coin Ninja, faces federal charges for using Bitcoin privacy tools.

The US federal prosecutors accuse Harmon of conspiracy to launder money and operate a money transfer company without obtaining the approval of Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

Earlier this month, an arrest warrant was filed, stating that the CEO faces federal charges as he reportedly laundered more than 354,468 Bitcoin worth around $311 million. He allegedly allowed users of a privacy platform dubbed “Helix”, and Grams search engine, to make transactions on AlphaBay; an online darknet market that ended its operations in 2017.

In addition, the privacy platform allowed users to mix the coins through a CoinJoin transaction before spending.

The CEO faces a prison sentence of 30 years for those alleged crimes.

Gary Harmon, the brother of Larry, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) froze Coin Ninja’s assets and removed Bitcoin worth $4,000 from the Lightning Network.

Harmon’s bail request rejected

Harmon requested bail from the US Federal Court on the basis that his family is living outside the US. However, the court did not trust that he would appear in the case of summoning him in the future.

Coin Ninja was founded by a group of Bitcoin enthusiasts who strongly believe that Bitcoin is the evolution of currency. They mainly aim to speed up the acceptance of Bitcoin globally. Thus, they released a suite of products allowing users to own, store, use and send the cryptocurrency. In addition, they seek offer the best information to their users, as well as educating new users to make them aware of all things related to Bitcoin.

Cryptolydian reported Elon Musk, CEO of prominent electric car maker Tesla, as saying that he is not interested in Bitcoin at all since it is used in illegal business.

On January 10, the American billionaire said on his twitter account that the Bitcoin is not a safe haven. However, this contradicts his previous statement in April 2019 that the Bitcoin is a safe haven, but later described it as a ‘joke’.

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