A federal judge in New York has sentenced the founder of Incognito Market to 30 years in prison for running a cryptocurrency-powered dark web marketplace that prosecutors say facilitated more than $105 million in illicit drug sales.
Rui-Siang Lin, 24, who operated the platform under the alias “Pharaoh,” was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The court also ordered Lin to forfeit $105,045,109 in proceeds and imposed five years of supervised release following the completion of his prison term, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
How Incognito Market operated
Incognito Market launched in October 2020 and functioned as a darknet marketplace where buyers and vendors used cryptocurrency to trade narcotics anonymously. Prosecutors said the platform remained active until March 2024, when it was shut down by its operator.
Central to the operation was an internal payment system known as “Incognito Bank.”
Rather than settling transactions directly on public blockchains, users deposited cryptocurrency into on-platform accounts. Once a sale was completed, funds were transferred internally from buyer to seller, with the marketplace retaining a 5% commission.
According to court records, this structure reduced transaction visibility while allowing the platform to scale rapidly.
Scale of activity and drug distribution
Federal authorities said Incognito Market processed more than 640,000 cryptocurrency transactions and grew to over 400,000 buyer accounts and 1,800 vendors worldwide. The drugs sold through the marketplace included heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, LSD, ketamine, alprazolam, and pills marketed as prescription oxycodone.
Prosecutors estimate the platform facilitated the distribution of more than one metric ton of illicit narcotics. Evidence cited in court includes sales of over 1,000 kilograms each of cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as thousands of pills sold as oxycodone that, in some cases, were later found to contain fentanyl.
Harm linked to the marketplace
Court filings tie the operation to at least one confirmed fatal overdose. In September 2022, a 27-year-old Arkansas resident died after consuming pills purchased through Incognito Market that testing later showed contained fentanyl, despite being sold as oxycodone.
Prosecutors said the platform’s reach extended to hundreds of thousands of users and caused harm well beyond individual transactions.
Guilty plea and sentencing remarks
Lin pleaded guilty in December 2024 to conspiring to distribute narcotics, money laundering, and conspiring to sell adulterated medication. During sentencing, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon described the scale of the operation as exceptional and said the case ranked among the most serious drug prosecutions she had handled during her time on the bench.
U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said Lin profited by exploiting the anonymity of cryptocurrency while operating a marketplace that caused widespread damage to users and their families.
Shutdown, stolen funds, and extortion attempt
When Incognito Market closed in March 2024, prosecutors said Lin took at least $1 million in user deposits. Court documents also describe an attempted extortion, in which Lin demanded payment from users while threatening to publish transaction histories and associated crypto addresses.
In one internal message cited by prosecutors, Lin acknowledged that the demand constituted extortion.
Part of a broader enforcement push
The sentencing follows a series of U.S. enforcement actions targeting crypto-enabled darknet infrastructure. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice finalized the forfeiture of more than $400 million linked to Helix, a cryptocurrency mixer used by darknet markets between 2014 and 2017.
Other recent cases include the June 2025 seizure of domains and digital assets connected to the BidenCash carding marketplace and ongoing recovery efforts tied to convicted drug trafficker Christopher Castelluzzo.
Lin will be transferred to federal custody to begin serving his sentence in accordance with the court’s order.
Gunel Ismayilova
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