Grams is a discontinued

search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

for Tor based

darknet markets A darknet market is a commercial website on the dark web that operates via darknets such as Tor or I2P. They function primarily as black markets, selling or brokering transactions involving drugs, cyber-arms, weapons, counterfeit currency, sto ...

launched in April 2014, and closed in December 2017. The service allowed users to search multiple darknet markets for products like

drugs A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via inhalati ...

and

guns A gun is a ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (gun barrel) to launch projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns/cannons, spray guns for painting or pressure washing, ...

from a simple search interface, and also provided the capability for its users to hide their transactions through its bitcoin tumbler ''Helix''. The services used a custom API to scrape listings from several markets such as Alpha Bay and others, to return search listings. The site is described by the Global Drug Policy Observatory to have "transformed how people search the hidden web". In May 2014 the site added ''Gramwords'', a service similar to

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

AdWords Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, or videos to web users. It can place ads both in the result ...

search sponsorship system for vendors. Additionally their profile system allows for cross-market vendor contact details and reviews to be held centrally. Later that year in June the creators released ''Grams Flow'', a clearnet to Tor redirection service serving various dark net sites and in November, a banner

advertising network An online advertising network or ad network is a company that connects advertisers to websites that want to host advertisements. The key function of an ad network is an aggregation of ad supply from publishers and matching it with advertiser's d ...

for Tor sites, ''TorAds'' which has not yet had much success. 'InfoDesk' allows central content and identity management for vendors, reducing the complexity of around maintaining presences on multiple markets. On December 9, 2017, the Grams administrator left a PGP signed message on the Reddit subreddit r/Grams stating that all Grams services, including the Helix tumbler, would be shut down on December 16, 2017.

Helix

In June 2014, Grams released ''Helix'' and ''Helix Light'', a market payment service with an integrated bitcoin tumbler. The site was also available on the clearnet via ''Grams Flow''. In August 2017, it was noted that an elaborate darknet

phishing Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious softwa ...

scam appeared as the top Google search result for "how to mix bitcoins", directing users to a fake version of the Grams Helix Light website that would steal their bitcoins. Due to the enduring popularity of the site, and relative ease of replicating the first few digits of a

.onion .onion is a special-use top level domain name designating an anonymous onion service, which was formerly known as a "hidden service", reachable via the Tor network. Such addresses are not actual DNS names, and the .onion TLD is not in the I ...

address, a number of illegitimate copies of the original Gram hidden service have been created. These include a scam version of flow, the search engine, and even copies of the drug marketplaces indexed. Several competing scams have replicated the "grams7e" portion of the address and are listed on links aggregators as if they are the now defunct original site. Like the Helix scam, these sites defraud unsuspecting visitors of any money or personal details entered on the fake site or fake marketplaces it linked to.

Owner

On February 6, 2020, the FBI and IRS arrested an Ohio man, Larry Dean Harmon, who they alleged was the operator of Helix and Grams. Helix was said to have been partnered with

AlphaBay AlphaBay is a darknet market operating both as an onion service on the Tor network and as an I2P node on I2P. After it was shut down in July 2017 following law enforcement action in the United States, Canada, and Thailand as part of Operation B ...

, an illegal darknet market shut down in mid-2017. Harmon pled guilty in August 2021 and agreed to forfeit 4400 bitcoins as part of a plea deal, and faces up to 20 years imprisonment. As of November 2021, Harmon's sentencing has been deferred indefinitely while he works under a cooperation plea agreement.https://www.millerchevalier.com/publication/money-laundering-enforcement-trends-spring-2022

References

{{Tor hidden services Internet search engines Cryptocurrency tumblers Internet properties established in 2014 Defunct Tor hidden services