Dark web drug market operator sentenced to 40 years, forfeits $101 million in bitcoin

A co-creator of dark web drug enterprise Empire Market agreed to forfeit 1,230 bitcoin ($101 million), after receiving a 40-year federal prison sentence for his role in operating the site.

His co-conspirator Thomas Pavey forfeited 1,584 bitcoin last year.

Raheim Hamilton, 30, of Suffolk, Virginia, also agreed to forfeit 24.4 ether worth about $60,000 and three properties, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. A federal judge in Chicago sentenced Hamilton on Monday and imposed a $5 million fine.

Hamilton and Pavey operated Empire Market from 2018 to 2020. Their site facilitated more than 4 million drug transactions worth upwards of $430 million, prosecutors said. They also said Hamilton and Pavey sold stolen account credentials, personal data, counterfeit currency and hacking tools.

Pavey, 41, of Ormond Beach, Florida, pleaded guilty last year to a federal drug conspiracy charge and admitted his role in creating and operating Empire Market. He also gave up his rights to two boxes containing 25-ounce gold bars, three automobiles, and two properties in Florida. Pavey is set to be sentenced later this month.

The pair required customers to use cryptocurrency and encouraged them to use mixing services to obscure the movement of funds, the Justice Department said. Prosecutors said drug sales accounted for nearly $375 million of the site’s total activity.

Ruis-Sian Lin, the alleged operator of the dark web narcotics marketplace Incognito Market, was sentenced to 30 years in U.S. federal prison in February.

A month earlier, the U.S. government seized $400 million worth of cryptocurrency, real estate and cash linked to the once-popular darknet bitcoin mixing service Helix, which, according to the Department of Justice, was used by drug traffickers and other criminals to launder money at the tune of at least 354,468 bitcoin worth $29 billion today.