Incognito founder gets 30-year sentence for running crypto dark web drug market

A Taiwanese man accused of running an online narcotics marketplace was sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in a US prison. The sentence was announced by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, after the defendant pleaded guilty in earlier court proceedings.

Rui-Siang Lin, 24, has been convicted by the US Justice Department as the operator of the dark website known as “Incognito Market,” under the alias “Pharaoh.” Federal prosecutors said the platform processed more than $105 million in illegal drug sales globally. 

According to US attorneys, Lin controlled the marketplace’s infrastructure, finances, vendors, employees, and customers while directing daily operations. He pleaded guilty in December 2024 to narcotics conspiracy, money laundering, and conspiring to sell adulterated and misbranded medications.

‘Pharaoh’ convicted after US court affirms guilty plea for running Incognito 

US District Judge Colleen McMahon imposed the sentence in Manhattan federal court after reviewing Lin’s participation in the now-closed marketplace. Prosecutors said the marketplace functioned from October 2020 until Lin shut it down in March 2024. During that period, the platform facilitated more than 640,000 narcotics transactions for hundreds of thousands of buyers worldwide.

“Rui-Siang Lin was one of the world’s most prolific drug traffickers, using the internet to sell more than $105 million of illegal drugs throughout this country and across the globe,” said Attorney Jay Clayton. 

“While Lin made millions, his offenses had devastating consequences. He is responsible for at least one tragic death, and he exacerbated the opioid crisis and caused misery for more than 470,000 narcotics users and their families.”

Lin helped found the platform in October 2020 and assumed full leadership by January 2022. Taiwanese media reported that Lin studied at National Taiwan University before completing the country’s civilian alternative service in St. Lucia.

While in St. Lucia, Pharaoh worked in a technical assistance role, training local police officers on cybercrime topics and leading a four-day training session on cybercrime and cryptocurrency. 

Per the DOJ’s files, Incognito Market was an online drug bazaar that looked like a legitimate e-commerce service. The site allowed users to create accounts with usernames and passwords, then provided pages for browsing thousands of listings and completing purchases anonymously.

Each drug listing was controlled by a specific vendor who registered with the platform and paid an admission fee. Vendors also paid a 5% commission on every completed sale, which covered server costs, employee salaries, and the marketplace’s technological needs. Lin personally earned more than $6 million in profits from the platform, according to federal prosecutors in the case. 

Incognito Market also had its own internal cryptocurrency payment processor called the “Incognito Bank,” where buyers and sellers could store crypto in site-based accounts that concealed their identities from each other. After a transaction is completed, the digital assets are automatically transferred from the buyer’s account to the vendor’s account via the internal system. 

Incognito market facilitated fentanyl-laced pill sales

The DOJ released several images showing the marketplace sold heroin, cocaine, LSD, MDMA, methamphetamine, ketamine, and alprazolam. More than 1,000 kilograms of cocaine and over 1,000 kilograms of methamphetamine were distributed through the site. The platform also sold more than four kilograms of purported oxycodone tablets.

On January 22, 2022, Lin announced a policy permitting vendors to sell opiates openly on the marketplace. After that change, vendors made listings that included prescription medications advertised as authentic but later found to be counterfeit. Some pills sold as oxycodone actually contained fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid linked to fatal overdoses, prosecutors said.

Lin abruptly closed Incognito Market in March 2024 without warning to users, while also stealing at least $1 million in crypto deposits that buyers and vendors had stored in the internal bank. He then attempted to extort participants by threatening to release their transaction histories and cryptocurrency addresses, writing “YES, THIS IS AN EXTORTION!!!” on the website. 

Federal agencies traced the domain registration to Lin because he used his real name, phone number, and address during setup, which led to his arrest in May 2024, Cryptopolitan reported.

Want your project in front of crypto’s top minds? Feature it in our next industry report, where data meets impact.