Kingpin of $100M ‘Incognito Market’ Dark Web Drug Empire Arrested

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The brains behind “Incognito Market,” a dark web platform for peddling illegal drugs, have been taken out by American federal officers. 23-year-old Rui-Siang Lin from Taiwan was arrested at the John F. Kennedy International Airport on May 18 and will face life imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to his role in the black-market enterprise.

Among the things the DoJ has revealed about Lin is that Lin is the one who ran Incognito Market from October 2020 right up to the time the market was flushed out by law enforcement in March 2024. 

Lin was brought to the federal court in Manhattan on Monday to be charged with several offences of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, narcotics conspiracy money laundering and entering into the transaction of adulterated and misbranded medicines.

Vast underground operation

It turns out that the use of the Incognito Market was used to test the possibility of buying and selling illegal drugs worth tens of millions of dollars from all over the world. 

It was named Silk Road and it became one of the biggest underground drug trade markets on the internet that offer drugs such as cocaine, meth amphetamines, heroin, LSD, MDMA, oxycodone, ketamine, and alprazolam.

The market’s website functioned like the regular e-commerce sites because when a customer bought a product on the platform there was a 5% transaction fee to be handed over to Lin. Further, it provided branding, advertising, customer service and a ‘bank’ in which customers could ‘renew’ their currency for use in transactions.

Dangerous and deceptive practices

The US DoJ claimed that the products offered by Incognito Market were often contaminated with unspecified harmful substances. Last November, law enforcement identified pills of oxycodone that were fentanyl overdoses that kill 20 to 40 times more people than heroin.

US Attorney Williams noted that according to the court’s document; Rui-Siang Lin offered a well-planned and fatal online drug commerce in which he managed to make hundreds of millions of dollars from citizens. ‘ The so-called ‘dark web’ cannot be protected to conduct illegal activities’, he said.

Lin’s control and downfall

Lin managed everything from employees to vendors and customers and made all main decisions concerning the businesses that operated at more than $9 million. 

Lin’s arrest shows that the continuous crackdown in the US on illegal activities on the dark web continues. On the one hand, if found guilty Lin may be sentenced to life in prison on one of the charges whereas other additional charges may carry between five years and life imprisonment. 

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