Incognito Market founder sentenced to 30 years for crypto-based dark web drug market

A federal judge sentenced Incognito Market founder Rui-Siang Lin to 30 years in prison on Tuesday for operating a cryptocurrency-based dark web marketplace that facilitated more than $105 million in illicit narcotics sales.

According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, Incognito Market relied on crypto payments and an internal system known as "Incognito Bank" to allow buyers and vendors to trade digital assets anonymously.

Prosecutors said the platform sold more than one ton of illicit drugs worldwide between its launch in October 2020 and its shutdown in March 2024.

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon also ordered Lin to forfeit $105,045,109 and serve five years of supervised release upon completion of his prison term. 

Lin, 24, who operated under the pseudonym "Pharaoh," pleaded guilty in December 2024 to conspiring to distribute narcotics, money laundering, and conspiring to sell adulterated medication. Judge McMahon told Lin that the operation had made him a "drug kingpin" and described the case as the most serious drug crime she had confronted in 27.5 years on the bench, according to the statement.

U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said Lin made millions by exploiting crypto anonymity to run a marketplace with "devastating" consequences. Prosecutors said the conduct was tied to at least one death and harm affecting more than 470,000 narcotics users and their families. Court evidence cited by prosecutors includes a September 2022 death of a 27-year-old in Arkansas who consumed pills sold as oxycodone on Incognito that testing showed were fentanyl.

Crypto rails

According to court documents cited in the Tuesday statement, Incognito Market grew to more than 400,000 buyer accounts and over 1,800 vendors, facilitating more than 640,000 crypto-fuled transactions. In January 2022, Lin announced that vendors could sell opiates, after which listings expanded to include purported prescription medications that in some cases were later found to contain fentanyl.

To facilitate payments, Incognito Market operated an internal system known as "Incognito Bank," which allowed users to deposit crypto into on-site accounts. After a transaction was completed, crypto was transferred from the buyer's account to the seller's account, minus a 5% commission collected by the platform. The system enabled buyers and sellers to transact anonymously, the prosecutors said.

Prosecutors noted that the drugs sold on the platform included heroin, cocaine, LSD, MDMA, methamphetamine, ketamine, alprazolam and oxycodone. They said sales included more than 1,000 kilograms each of cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as more than 4 kilograms of purported oxycodone.

When Lin closed the marketplace in March 2024, prosecutors said he took at least $1 million in user deposits and attempted to extort participants by demanding payment or threatening to publish user histories and crypto addresses. In one site message, Lin wrote that the demand was an extortion.

The sentencing comes days after the DOJ finalized forfeiture of more than $400 million tied to Helix, a darknet crypto mixer that processed at least 354,468 bitcoin between 2014 and 2017, worth about $300 million at the time, according to a DOJ statement. Helix operator Larry Dean Harmon pleaded guilty in August 2021 and was sentenced in November 2024 to three years in prison.

Earlier enforcement actions include a June 2025 seizure of 145 domains and cryptocurrency funds linked to BidenCash, a carding marketplace that generated $17 million in revenue. In November 2023, authorities also filed for the recovery of $54 million in cryptocurrency, including 30,000 ETH, linked to New Jersey drug trafficker Christopher Castelluzzo, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence.