Empire Market Co-Creator Sentenced to 40 Years Over $430M Dark Web Bazaar

A co-creator of darknet marketplace Empire Market has been sentenced to 40 years in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois said Wednesday.

Raheim Hamilton, 30, of Suffolk, Virginia, was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Steven C. Seeger in Chicago, and fined $5 million. He pleaded guilty earlier this year to a drug conspiracy charge.

Hamilton co-owned and operated Empire Market with Thomas Pavey from 2018 to 2020. In that time, the site facilitated more than four million transactions between vendors and buyers worth more than $430 million.

Drug sales dominated, totaling nearly $375 million, and included at least 13.3 kilograms of fentanyl, 447 kilograms of cocaine and 103 kilograms of heroin. The site also sold stolen account credentials and personal information, counterfeit currency and hacking tools.

Hamilton and Pavey required every transaction on the site to be made in cryptocurrency, and encouraged users to run their funds through tumbling and mixing services. They also let buyers rate vendors on how well they concealed the drugs they shipped.

Hamilton agreed to forfeit about 1,230 BTC and 24.4 ETH, as well as three properties in Virginia.

Empire’s exit

Empire Market launched in February 2018, several months after the takedown of AlphaBay, and soon became the leader of the Western darknet market ecosystem, according to blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs.

It went offline in August 2020 in what users believed was a $30 million exit scam. At the time, analysts expected more crypto to flow to darknet markets.

In February, Rui-Siang Lin, who ran darknet drug bazaar Incognito Market, was sentenced to 30 years in prison over a platform that handled more than $105 million in narcotics sales.

Pavey, 41, of Ormond Beach, Florida, pleaded guilty last year to a federal drug conspiracy charge. He agreed to forfeit about 1,584 BTC, two boxes of 25-ounce gold bars, three cars and two Florida properties, and is due to be sentenced by Seeger later this month.