Incognito Market founder sentenced to 30 years for darknet crypto marketplace

Incognito Market founder Rui-Siang Lin has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for running one of the largest online drug marketplaces on the darknet, which operated entirely through cryptocurrency payments. The court also ordered the forfeiture of $105,045,109.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Incognito Market operated from October 2020 to March 2024 and processed more than 640,000 crypto transactions facilitating the sale of over a ton of illegal drugs. The platform handled more than $105 million in illicit trades and hosted over 400,000 buyer accounts and roughly 1,800 sellers worldwide.

A key feature of the marketplace was its internal “Incognito Bank,” which allowed users to store cryptocurrency anonymously inside the platform. After each transaction, funds were automatically transferred from the buyer’s account to the seller’s, with the service taking a 5% commission. This system provided full anonymity and significantly complicated law-enforcement efforts.

Sellers on the platform trafficked a wide range of substances – including heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, LSD, MDMA, and counterfeit prescription drugs. In several cases, pills marketed as oxycodone contained fentanyl. Court documents note that at least one fatality – the 2022 death of a 27-year-old Arkansas resident – was linked to a counterfeit pill purchased on Incognito Market.

Lin, known online as “Pharaoh,” pleaded guilty in December 2024 to charges of conspiracy to distribute narcotics, money laundering, and selling counterfeit medications. Judge Colleen McMahon called him a “drug kingpin,” stating that in 27.5 years on the bench she had never seen a case of such scale.

Prosecutors also noted that in March 2024, when Lin announced that the marketplace was shutting down, he stole at least $1 million in user deposits and attempted to extort participants by threatening to expose their transaction histories and cryptocurrency wallet addresses.

The sentencing comes shortly after another major case: the Department of Justice finalized the forfeiture of more than $400 million linked to the Helix darknet mixer, which investigators say processed at least 354,468 BTC.

The Incognito Market case stands as one of the largest examples of cryptocurrency being used to build a global drug-trafficking network – and illustrates how anonymous payment mechanisms are increasingly becoming central to criminal investigations.