The legal case against Rui-Siang Lin is being prosecuted in the Southern District of New York, a jurisdiction known for tackling high-profile cybercrime and narcotics cases. Once Lin was in custody, the indictment against him was unsealed, revealing an array of serious charges. Lin was accused of being the principal operator of a Continuing Criminal Enterprise (CCE) – often referred to as the “kingpin” or “drug lord” statute – due to the large-scale, ongoing narcotics trafficking conspiracy he oversaw. This charge alone carries a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison upon conviction. It’s the same heavy statute used against infamous figures like the founder of Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, signifying that prosecutors viewed Incognito Market as the equivalent of a major drug cartel, just in digital form. The #1 darknet drug market – Incognito – took all of its users’ money earlier this month.
Market Operations
He wasn’t just sitting back collecting commissions; Pharaoh was actively participating in the underground community, even launching side ventures to cement his status. In 2021, Pharaoh introduced a service called “Antinalysis,” which was essentially a counter-intelligence tool for crypto users. Antinalysis allowed anyone (for a fee) to input their cryptocurrency address and see how likely it was to be flagged as “dirty” or linked to illicit activity – effectively letting criminals check if their funds could be traced.
New vendors paid an admission fee to join, ensuring a revenue stream and a barrier against law enforcement decoys or low-effort scammers. In return, Incognito provided an infrastructure for secure (albeit illegal) transactions and acted as an escrow intermediary between buyer and seller. This approach mirrored the playbook of earlier darknet markets and contributed to Incognito’s rapid growth. Examples include the sale of high-quality products with low risk for contamination (including lacing and cutting), vendor-tested products, sharing of trip reports, and online discussion of harm reduction practices.
- One fraud shop that provided services like these, Genesis Market, saw its end last April after a coordinated, international law enforcement effort called Operation Cookie Monster closed it down, and OFAC sanctioned it.
- Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ryan B. Finkel and Nicholas Chiuchiolo are in charge of the prosecution.
- Silk Road popularized the use of Bitcoin, anonymizing technologies like Tor, and vendor reputation systems.
- HSI is a worldwide law enforcement leader in Darknet and other cyber-related criminal investigations.
- The narcotics conspiracy charge (for the multitude of drug deals enabled by Incognito) carries a 10-year mandatory minimum and up to life in prison.
Onion URLs generally contain a string of seemingly random letters and numbers. Once you are certain that you have the correct URL, save it in an encrypted note—the Tor browser will not cache it for later. Otherwise, there’s a good chance of falling victim to a phishing scam like this fake Bitcoin mixer. Even when using security measures and your common sense, accessing deep web content still poses a risk. Antivirus will ensure that any viruses or malware downloaded from the dark web are removed.
Combating Transnational Crime
- This site supports PGP encryption and two-factor authentication features.
- It also depends on what action the remaining administrator ‘MommaBear’ will take.
- “Under the promise of anonymity, Lin’s alleged operation offered the purchase of lethal drugs and fraudulent prescription medication on a global scale,” said James Smith, an assistant director in the FBI’s New York office.
- Born in Taiwan, Lin was a bright student, excelling in computer science and cybersecurity.
- Traffic logs are a bigger concern than session logs, but neither are good.
To become an Incognito Market vendor, people were required to register with the site and pay an admission fee. In exchange for listing and selling narcotics as a vendor on Incognito Market, each vendor paid 5% of the purchase price of every narcotic sold. That revenue funded Incognito Market’s operations, including paying “employee” salaries and for computer servers. To facilitate these financial transactions, Incognito Market had its own “bank,” which allowed its users to deposit cryptocurrency on the site into their own accounts.
Incognito Darknet Market 2025 Link
In recent years, some darknet markets and fraud shops have been integrating crypto payment processors on their websites via APIs, possibly as a way to improve operational efficiency and increase security. Essentially, these payment processors provide a white label service for darknet markets and fraud shops, and a seamless checkout experience for those services’ customers. UAPS, shown in the chart above, is one such example of a payment processor that many fraud shops, including the OFAC-designated Genesis Market, used in 2023. The value received by UAPS in this chart includes payments sent to multiple fraud shops using the service as a payment processor. Incognito is entirely drug-oriented, with everything else being prohibitted for sale.
Lin’s GitHub account describes him as a “backend and blockchain engineer, Monero enthusiast.” This GitHub account has approximately 44 publicly available software coding projects. His preferred programming language is JavaScript, followed by HTML and TypeScript. He has contributed 1,741 times on the platform, and his main projects are related to blockchains, cryptocurrency, and network security. The arrest of Riu-Siang Lin, the former administrator of the closed Incognito marketplace, by the US authorities on 18th May is causing a domino effect in the underground illegal communities, leading to an alleged exit plan on the SuperMarket. On Dreads, the co-administrator of the Supermarket announced to the community on May 21, 2024, that the wallets had been emptied and that the only person who would have had access to them was “FatherBear”, the other administrator of the marketplace. Original marketplace URLs get regularly updated for security reasons, hence the reason for verification.
Darknet Market Revenues Rise In 2023 As Markets Develop Role Specialization
It’s not clear whether Lin obtained his Chainalysis certification to bolster a new career training law enforcement in blockchain analysis or, if US prosecutors are to be believed, to advance his previous alleged career as a dark-web criminal. But it raises the troubling possibility that a former dark-web kingpin—one who was still extorting his own users—was perhaps playing both sides of the crypto tracing game, says Elliptic’s Tom Robinson. Finally, despite his supposed expertise in cryptocurrency tracing and digital privacy, it was Lin’s own relatively sloppy money trails that, the DOJ claims, helped the FBI to trace his real identity. Investigation of crypto transactions that led to the arrest of Riu-Siang Lin shows that threat actors and criminals in the underground forums cannot operate alone and without leaving any traces when switching to real life. “Pharao” created the Incognito marketplace when he was just a student, probably trying to make more money.
Arizona School District Data Breach
However, the darknet influencer, Hugbunter, posted on March 5th to say that Pharaoh offered him a bribe to downplay the situation on the forum. Hugbunter went on to update Reddit the following day by warning that nobody could withdraw funds; send and receive messages; close their accounts or disable their listings on the marketplace. For weeks, there had been rumours of selective scamming on Incognito with many users reportedly unable to withdraw funds. The marketplace largely disabled Bitcoin withdrawals on February 19th and then prevented XMR withdrawals on March 4th, with the captcha tool ceasing to function. Cybercriminals on the dark web marketplace always look for new victims to target them with scams or infect their devices with malware, spyware, or adware. Thus, use the best antivirus software that protects against these online threats.
The website has a sleek design and interactive user interface, making it the most preferred choice in terms of user experience. You can pay through Monera and Bitcoin using the escrow system or the traditional market account after making a purchase on this shop. The ASAP is a moderate design marketplace on the dark web that offers helpful tools like mandatory PGP encryption and two-factor authentication for a safe browsing experience. Like other marketplaces, ASAP Market also requires you to register for an account. If you want to buy something, deposit cryptocurrency in your wallet, and you will be charged directly. However, the website has some security risks, and users experience glitches.
Charges, Court Proceedings, And Ripple Effects
Moreover, this shop provides detailed statistics about each user profile on the platform, giving users a better idea of the vendors for the buyers and vice versa. This marketplace accepts payments via Monero but also supports the Escrow system. But Lin’s arrest was more than just a victory for law enforcement—it was a turning point in the fight against cybercrime. The investigation had demonstrated that even the most sophisticated darknet operations could be infiltrated and dismantled, given enough time and resources. It also highlighted the growing importance of cryptocurrency forensics and blockchain analysis in combating cybercrime. The market also used multiple wallets to manage its funds—hot wallets for active transactions and cold storage for the bulk of its assets.
Torzon Market
The Incognito Market URL verification involves cross-referencing using several independent trusted sources. Incognito Market has priced its extortion for vendors based on their status or “level” within the marketplace. Level 1 vendors can supposedly have their information removed by paying a $100 fee. However, larger “Level 5” vendors are asked to cough up $20,000 payments. Knowing that Lin resided overseas (Taiwan, and possibly on assignment in St. Lucia), law enforcement had to be strategic about how to apprehend him. The opportunity came in May 2024, when Lin planned international travel.
Pharaoh openly advertised Antinalysis on Dread, framing it as a way to help darknet users and “those who needed complete privacy on the blockchain” evade law enforcement scrutiny. In a statement dripping with irony, he wrote that “Our goals do not lie in aiding the surveillance autocracy of state-sponsored agencies… This service is dedicated to individuals that have the need to possess complete privacy on the blockchain”. This move positioned Pharaoh as something of a champion of privacy in the eyes of darknet denizens. It also showcased his technical acumen – straddling the line between criminal utility and software entrepreneurship. In May 2024, a 23-year-old Taiwanese IT specialist named Rui-Siang Lin stepped off a plane at New York’s JFK airport and was promptly arrested by federal agents.
On average, the marketplace consists of more than 11,000 items and 1000 vendors. But since its relaunch, the developers are focusing more on operational security and ensuring that users can have a good experience on this site. World Market is another largest dark web shops that deals with various goods and services. Its impressive anti-DDoS protection feature and easy-to-use interface make this marketplace stand out among the others. Few journalists care to cover the darknet today – much less to report on its safety issues.
