In addition, in November 2023, an undercover law enforcement officer received several tablets purporting to be oxycodone purchased on the Incognito Market. Tests on these tablets revealed that they were not authentic oxycodone at all but were, in fact, fentanyl pills. HSI New York leads and directs all operational and administrative activities of the El Dorado Task Force (EDTF). The EDTF is the premier money laundering task force in the nation and is comprised of more than 200 law enforcement personnel representing approximately thirty-five (35) federal, state, and local law enforcement and regulatory agencies.
- For example, in November 2023, while operating in an undercover capacity on Incognito Market, a law enforcement agent purchased and received several tablets purported to be oxycodone.
- Incredible pictures of an alleged international vaccine market have been unearthed, with experts speculating about widespread corruption.
- In the case of SuperMarket, users will likely migrate to other illegal communities due to a lack of trust in the platform.
- Many vendors around the world partner with Incognito Darknet because the Incognito Darknet Store has some of the lowest fees on the market and a good reputation among vendors.
In a LinkedIn post in April 2024, Lin shared some pictures from a “cybercrime and cryptocurrency training” at the Saint Lucia Police Academy. In another post, he promoted his new healthcare project called ‘Face2ID’, which uses contactless biometric scanning to create unique and secure patient identifiers, improving the accuracy and security of patient data management. On May 18, 2024, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York, in coordination with law enforcement partners, arrested Rui-Siang Lin at John F. Kennedy International Airport in connection with his operation and ownership of Incognito Market.
Incognito’s Market Exit Scam
In March, Incognito Market shut down after reportedly pulling an exit scam that left users unable to withdraw their funds. Administrators of the site then reportedly began extorting vendors, ordering them to pay a fee ranging from $100 to $20,000, depending on their size, or else risk having their customers’ data leaked. U.S. authorities have arrested and charged a Taiwanese national with operating darknet drug bazaar Incognito Market, which he allegedly used to facilitate over $100 million in crypto-denominated sales of illegal narcotics including fentanyl. Kerberos has grown rapidly — some reports note over 1,100 listings within seven months, while others claim 5,000+ listings — showing a strong vendor presence. User feedback on darknet forums is mostly positive, citing reliability and smooth transactions, though, as with all darknet markets, risks remain.
Drughub Market
Because hardly anyone will take on Incognito at a time when there are much more daring players in the market. Yet the digital nature of these crimes ensures new threats will emerge. Just as Incognito built on the playbook of its predecessors, future markets will learn from RapTor. But with blockchain intelligence advancing and global partnerships strengthening, law enforcement is better positioned than ever to detect, disrupt, and dismantle these operations.
Combating Transnational Crime
As soon as Lin transited through a U.S. jurisdiction (JFK Airport in New York), authorities pounced. On May 18, 2024, Rui-Siang Lin was arrested by FBI and HSI agents at JFK, effectively ambushing him during a layover before he could continue elsewhere. This tactic – arresting a target during international transit – is often used when a suspect is based in a country with no easy extradition. Taiwan does not have a formal extradition treaty with the U.S., so luring or waiting for Lin to enter U.S. soil was the surest way to get custody of him. The arrest operation at the airport was coordinated and swift, giving Lin little time to react or attempt any digital sabotage (like wiping devices). He was presented in Manhattan federal court two days later to face charges.
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. Incognito Market had its own “bank,” which allowed its users to deposit cryptocurrency on the site into their accounts. 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.
How To Access Incognito Market: A Step-by-Step Guide
“Stay posted and fuck LE,” Pharoah wrote, using the abbreviation LE to mean “law enforcement.” Antinalysis eventually returned, however, and pivoted last year to acting instead as a service for swapping bitcoin for monero and vice versa. At the same time the FBI says Lin was laying the groundwork for this double-cross, he also appears to have briefly tried engineering an entirely different scheme. Incognito Market was designed to foster seamless narcotics transactions across the internet and across the world and incorporated many features of legitimate e-commerce sites, such as branding, advertising and customer service.
Cypher Darknet Market
Monero’s privacy features in particular obscured sender, receiver, and transaction amounts, posing challenges to investigators tracing flows. Incognito Market, once one of the most secure and reliable platforms on the dark web, was no more. Other darknet markets quickly took notice, with many administrators shutting down their operations in fear of being the next target.
Bazaar marketplace is known for a wide range of products (drugs, fraud tools) and a straightforward interface. It enforces multisig escrow on all transactions and has an active customer support Breaking Bad Forum. Incognito expands its product offerings beyond conventional boundaries, encompassing categories like drugs, fraud, hacking, counterfeits, and even defense/intelligence, each with in-depth subcategories. While popular items like cannabis and stimulants are available, the market excels with its ‘Other’ section in fraud, which includes a variety of unique guides and tools.
- One particularly revealing moment came in February 2024, when Incognito users reported that BTC withdrawals were disabled—likely part of a deliberate “exit scam.” Lin, or others acting on his behalf, threatened to leak vendor identities to law enforcement unless paid.
- Until that moment, Lin led a double life that astonished both law enforcement and the darknet community.
- He introduced a ‘banking’ system within Incognito, a feature that set it apart from other darknet markets.
- Upon visiting the site via the Tor browser, users were greeted by a graphic interface and prompted to log in with a unique username and password.
- His professors described him as a prodigy, someone who could solve complex problems with ease and elegance.
- After a narcotics transaction was completed, cryptocurrency from the buyer’s account was transferred to the seller’s account, less the 5% fee that Incognito collected.
Unraveling The Seedy Underbelly Of The Darknet Marketplaces
DeepDotWeb was the primary source of darknet news and safety information for six years. When it was seized by the USA’s FBI all of its articles were removed from the internet, our collective memory. Its publications were inconvenient for governments, exposing invasive investigative techniques and covering court filings that prosecutors prefer to stay buried and paywalled. There is a dark history of scammers, and even of government agents, making false and misleading public statements to people who browse Tor hidden services.
The operational strategies of Incognito Market borrowed heavily from normal online marketplaces. It incorporated features like branding, advertising banners, and even customer support to foster a “seamless” user experience. Each product listing was posted by an independent vendor, complete with the vendor’s username, shipping origin, accepted destinations, and customer reviews. Incognito charged vendors a 5% commission on every sale, a business model that generated millions of dollars in revenue for the platform.
Initially, the market relied on Bitcoin, but as law enforcement agencies developed more advanced blockchain analysis tools, Bitcoin’s transparency became a liability. Lin recognized this vulnerability and transitioned the market to Monero, a cryptocurrency designed specifically for privacy. One of Lin’s most innovative contributions to the darknet was the creation of a cryptocurrency ‘bank’ within Incognito.
On Incognito, buyers, sellers, and administrators were required to use PGP to encrypt their messages, ensuring that even if law enforcement managed to intercept communications, they would be virtually unreadable without the corresponding private key. The first major breakthrough in the investigation came in late 2023, when an undercover agent made a crucial purchase on Incognito Market. The agent had ordered what was supposed to be oxycodone, a prescription painkiller that is frequently sold on the dark web.
Torzon Market
Lin quickly became involved in various research projects, often working late into the night on coding challenges and cryptography puzzles. It was during this time that Lin first encountered the world of cryptocurrencies, a discovery that would change the course of his life forever. In the DOJ’s criminal complaint against Lin, it points to a handwritten document the FBI pulled from his email, which appears to sketch out a flow chart for a dark-web market’s mechanics. The complaint’s FBI affidavit says Lin emailed himself the sketch in March 2020 when he was at most 19 years old. It describes functionality such as how “vendors” and “buyers” would register, make purchases, and encrypt shipping addresses.
Tracing Cryptocurrency Transactions
The platform offered everything from narcotics and counterfeit currency to hacking tools and illegal firearms. The variety of goods available on Incognito was staggering, but it was the market’s reputation for security and reliability that kept users coming back. Lin was the alleged mastermind behind Incognito Market, a darknet marketplace that facilitated the sale of illicit drugs and other illegal goods.
