Alleged dark web druglord jailed after making over $100m
UnsplashA 23-year-old drug lord was arrested in New York on May 18 for allegedly running a dark web market, which sold more than $100M of illegal narcotics to customers around the world.
According to the May 21 announcement by the US Department of Justice (DoJ), the alleged drug lord, Rui-Siang Lin, is a Taiwanese citizen who was arrested at John F. Kennedy Airport in connection with his operation and ownership of “Incognito Market.”
“The arrest of ‘Incognito Market’ owner Rui-Siang Lin is a result of the continued working relationship the DEA has with our law enforcement partners in targeting individuals who use the dark web as a marketplace to promote the sale of illicit narcotics,” explained Frank A Tarentino III of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Incognito Market was an online narcotics bazaar that existed on the dark web until March of this year. It was formed in October 2020 and ran until its closure in March where it sold more than $100 million worth of narcotics, including hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamines.
Rui-Siang Lin, who also went by the online pseudonyms “Pharoah” or “faro,” is accused of having run the entire business.
The Incognito Market landing page promised “ease of use and security.” It offered a variety of options, including a “drug wiki,” a list of vendors, and a searchable database of illegal drugs. After creating an account, users could browse thousands of listings for narcotics of all kinds.
DOJIt acted as a middleman, connecting drug dealers with buyers. Both vendors and customers had to use the Tor browser to access the site, and all transactions were conducted in cryptocurrency to hide their identities.
“Lin collected millions of dollars of profits from Incognito. To facilitate these financial transactions, Incognito Market had its own ‘bank,’ which allowed its users to deposit cryptocurrency on the site into their own ‘bank accounts,'” explained the DoJ.
“After a narcotics transaction was completed, cryptocurrency from the buyer’s ‘bank account’ was transferred to the seller’s ‘bank account,’ less the five percent fee that Incognito collected. The bank enabled buyers and sellers to stay anonymous from each other,” the Department further explained.