Security News > 2024 > May > Owner of Incognito dark web drugs market arrested in New York
The owner and operator of Incognito Market, a dark web marketplace for selling illegal narcotics online, was arrested at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on May 18.
"LIN had ultimate control over more than one thousand vendors, more than 200,000 customers, and at least one other employee who assisted LIN in the management of the site," according to the indictment [PDF].
"After registering, customers were able to select which narcotics to purchase from which vendor and to pay for those narcotics using cryptocurrency, in transactions facilitated by a payment platform that Incognito Market described as a"bank".
According to the complaint [PDF], in July 2022 and August 2023, law enforcement agents executed search warrants to gain access to three servers used to operate the marketplace and containing marketplace data.
While analyzing the marketplace transaction data, they were also able to chart how the marketplace's sales volume increased over time, as shown in the image below.
In March 2024, Lin abruptly shut down the marketplace, refusing to return the vendors' and customers' funds and threatening to publish the transaction history for all Incognito Market users unless they paid him an additional fee.
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