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The 30-year prison sentence handed to Rui-Siang Lin, the operator of the infamous Incognito Market, is more than just another darknet takedown story. Lin, who ran Incognito Market under the alias “Pharaoh,” oversaw one of the largest online narcotics operations in history, generating more than $105 million in illegal drug sales worldwide before its collapse in March 2024. Platforms like Incognito Market are not clever experiments in decentralization. They are industrial-scale criminal enterprises, and their architects will be treated as such.

How Incognito Market Became a Global Narcotics Hub

Launched in October 2020, Incognito Market was designed to look and feel like a legitimate e-commerce platform, only its products were heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, LSD, ketamine, and counterfeit prescription drugs. Accessible through the Tor browser, the dark web marketplace allowed anyone with basic technical knowledge to buy illegal narcotics from around the globe. At its peak, Incognito Market supported over 400,000 buyer accounts, more than 1,800 vendors, and facilitated 640,000 drug transactions. Over 1,000 kilograms of cocaine, 1,000 kilograms of methamphetamine, and fentanyl-laced pills were likely sold, the authorities said. This was not a fringe operation—it was a global supply chain built on code, crypto, and calculated harm.

Also read: “Incognito Market” Operator Arrested for Running $100M Narcotics Marketplace

“Pharaoh” and the Business of Digital Drug Trafficking

Operating as “Pharaoh,” Lin exercised total control over Incognito Market. Vendors paid an entry fee and a 5% commission on every sale, creating a steady revenue stream that funded servers, staff, and Lin’s personal profit—more than $6 million by prosecutors’ estimates. The marketplace had a very professional-looking modus operandi from branding, customer service, vendor ratings, and even its own internal financial system—the Incognito Bank—which allowed users to deposit cryptocurrency and transact anonymously. The system was designed to remove trust from human relationships and replace it with platform-controlled infrastructure. This was not chaos. It was corporate-style crime.

Fentanyl, Fake Oxycodone, and Real Deaths

In January 2022, Lin explicitly allowed opiate sales on Incognito Market, a decision that proved deadly. Listings advertised “authentic” oxycodone, but laboratory tests later revealed fentanyl instead. In September 2022, a 27-year-old man from Arkansas died after consuming pills purchased through the platform. This is where the myth of victimless cybercrime collapsed. Incognito Market did not just move drugs—it amplified the opioid crisis and directly contributed to loss of life. U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton stated that Lin’s actions caused misery for more than 470,000 users and their families, a figure that shows the human cost behind the transactions.

Exit Scam, Extortion, and the Final Collapse

When Incognito Market shut down in March 2024, Lin didn’t disappear quietly. He stole at least $1 million in user deposits and attempted to extort buyers and vendors, threatening to expose their identities and crypto addresses. His message was blunt: “YES, THIS IS AN EXTORTION!!!” It was a fittingly brazen end to an operation built on manipulation and fear. Judge Colleen McMahon called Incognito Market the most serious drug case she had seen in nearly three decades, labeling Lin a “drug kingpin.” The message from law enforcement is unmistakable: dark web platforms, cryptocurrency, and blockchain are not shields against justice.

The U.S. Justice Department has announced the sentencing of Samourai Wallet’s two co-founders for their role in knowingly transmitting more than $237 million in criminal proceeds through the cryptocurrency-mixing platform Authorities say the platform’s design enabled users to mask the origin of funds tied to drug trafficking, darknet marketplaces, cyber intrusions, fraud schemes, sanctioned jurisdictions, murder-for-hire operations, and child exploitation sites. Nicolas Roos, Attorney for the United States acting under 28 U.S.C. § 515, said the outcomes “send a clear message that laundering known criminal proceeds—regardless of whether the funds are in fiat or cryptocurrency—will face serious consequences.”

Five- and Four-Year Prison Terms

U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote sentenced CEO Keonne Rodriguez to five years in prison on August 6, 2025, and CTO William Lonergan Hill to four years on November 19, 2025. Both were convicted of participating in a conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business that knowingly processed criminal proceeds. In addition to prison time, each will serve three years of supervised release and pay a $250,000 fine. They have jointly forfeited more than $6.3 million, representing the fees Samourai earned through the illicit transactions.

How Samourai Wallet Enabled Large-Scale Laundering

According to court documents, Rodriguez and Hill began building Samourai Wallet in 2015 with features designed to hide transaction origins. Two core services—Whirlpool and Ricochet—played a central role:

• Whirlpool mixed Bitcoin among batches of users, obscuring transaction histories and preventing investigators and exchanges from tracing the original source.
• Ricochet added intentional “hops” between sending and receiving addresses, complicating blockchain analysis and further distancing funds from their origins.

Between Ricochet’s launch in 2017 and Whirlpool’s expansion in 2019, more than 80,000 Bitcoin—valued at over $2 billion at the time—moved through Samourai’s infrastructure. Prosecutors emphasized that the volume of transactions showed how deeply the platform was embedded in criminal financial flows.

Promotion to Criminal Users

Evidence presented in court showed that both co-founders actively encouraged use of Samourai Wallet on darknet forums, encrypted channels, and social media. Hill allegedly promoted Whirlpool on Dread, a marketplace forum, positioning it as a superior method to “clean dirty BTC.” Rodriguez, in a separate 2020 exchange, urged hackers involved in a major social media breach to route their stolen funds through Samourai. In private WhatsApp messages, Rodriguez reportedly described mixing as “money laundering for bitcoin.” Samourai’s own internal marketing material classified its target users as “Dark/Grey Market participants.”

Global Investigation and International Support

The investigation involved multiple international partners, including Europol, the Portuguese Judicial Police, and the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs. Hill was arrested in Portugal and extradited in July 2024. Rodriguez was taken into custody in the United States. The FBI, IRS-Criminal Investigation, and several European agencies contributed to evidence collection, digital forensics, and cross-border coordination