A 23-year-old man has been arrested in New York and charged with owning, operating and profiting from a $100 million dark web drug market after authorities claimed to have tracked cryptocurrency transfers that revealed his real identity.
Rui-Siang Lin, known online as “Pharoah,” was arrested at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on May 18 and appeared in federal court on Monday, May 20, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan said in a statement. It was revealed through .
“Lin Louisiang is believed to have operated ‘Secret Market’, one of the largest online drug sales platforms, for nearly four years, conducting illegal drug transactions worth up to $100 million and reaping millions of dollars in personal profits,” FBI Deputy Director in Charge said. “he added. James Smith.
Incognito Market was an Onion-based e-commerce platform accessed using the Tor web browser (also known as the “dark web” or “dark net”).
This allowed users to buy and sell drugs, including cocaine, LSD, MDMA, and prescription amphetamines like Adderall, using Bitcoin (BTC) and Monero (XMR) as payment methods.
The marketplace required buyers and sellers to skim 5% of every purchase using its own crypto service and provide escrow services, the Justice Department alleged.
The DOJ noted that the market was shut down in March of this year, coinciding with a previously reported exit scam that allegedly stole millions of dollars worth of BTC and XMR from customers.
Lin was charged with criminal enterprise, drug conspiracy, conspiracy to sell misbranded drugs, and money laundering.
If convicted, Lin faces life in prison for the criminal enterprise charge. She faces a maximum sentence of life in prison on the drug conspiracy charge.
The Justice Department issued a confiscation order for cryptocurrencies held in Lin’s Binance and Kraken accounts.
FBI traces cryptocurrency transfer
The FBI discovered Lin and partially traced Incognito Market cryptocurrency transfers to an anonymous centralized crypto exchange account in Lin’s name, alleging Lin’s ties to dark web sites.
FBI Task Force Director Mark Rubens said in a deposition that a cryptocurrency wallet controlled by Lin received funds from a wallet at Incognito Markets and then transferred them to an exchange account in Lin’s name.
Rubens described at least four transfers traced by the FBI as Lin’s cryptocurrency wallet sending BTC derived from Incognito Market to a “swapping service” to exchange it for XMR. The XMR was then deposited into a cryptocurrency exchange account that the FBI claims belongs to Lin.
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Reubens said the exchange provided the FBI with Lin’s Taiwanese driver’s license, which was used to open the account, along with his email address and phone number.
The FBI alleged that Lin used funds from alleged cryptocurrency wallets and accounts to link emails and phone numbers to Namecheap accounts that purchased domains for sites promoting Incognito Market.
Deposits to Lin’s cryptocurrency exchange accounts increased from about $63,000 in 2021 to nearly $4.2 million in 2023 with Incognito Market and a second, unnamed trading account between July and November of last year, according to the deposition. $4.5 million was deposited.
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