A Chicago federal judge sentenced Raheim Hamilton to 40 years in prison and ordered him to pay a $5 million fine for co-creating Empire Market, a dark web marketplace that processed $430 million in illegal transactions between 2018 and 2020. Hamilton, who went by the online aliases Sydney and ZeroAngel, pleaded guilty earlier this year to a drug conspiracy charge tied to the site's massive trafficking operation.
Empire Market conducted more than 4 million transactions during its run, according to The Record from Recorded Future News, and prosecutors say drug sales alone accounted for roughly $375 million of that total. Dealers on the platform sold fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin alongside hacking tools and stolen information. According to official U.S. Department of Justice records, the site facilitated the sale of at least 13.3 kilograms of fentanyl, 446.7 kilograms of cocaine, nearly 72,000 grams of methamphetamine and more than 103,000 grams of heroin — quantities that mattered enormously given that fentanyl is lethal in microgram doses.
Hamilton agreed to forfeit more than $100 million worth of bitcoin and several properties in Virginia as part of his plea. Federal court records reported by Bitcoin.com News put the forfeiture at approximately 1,230 bitcoin and 24.4 Ether, plus the three Virginia properties. The sentence followed U.S. District Judge Steven C. Seeger's ruling under federal drug conspiracy statutes, which carry a mandatory minimum of 10 years and a maximum of life in prison, as detailed by Security Affairs.
From AlphaBay Vendor to Empire Market Co-Founder
Before launching their own operation, Hamilton and co-defendant Thomas Pavey worked together selling counterfeit U.S. currency on AlphaBay, the dark web marketplace federal authorities shut down in 2017. That takedown left a vacuum that the two men moved quickly to fill. Per BleepingComputer, Hamilton and Pavey created and began running Empire Market on February 1, 2018, explicitly designing it as an AlphaBay clone.
The new platform expanded into categories covering fraud, drugs and chemicals, counterfeit items, and software and malware, and it relied on encryption for communications and cryptocurrency mixers that let users launder money through the site. At its peak in August 2020, Empire Market maintained approximately 1.68 million registered unique users, including more than 5,000 illegal vendors, nearly 360,000 active buyers and over 166,000 drug listings, the outlet's report notes. Investigators eventually traced counterfeit currency sold on the site directly to a law enforcement agent, helping build the case against its operators.
A $30 Million Exit Scam Preceded the Collapse
Empire Market disappeared in the summer of 2020, and its operators stole an estimated $30 million in bitcoin that users had left in escrow. As reported by India Today, the site's abrupt end followed severe extortion-based distributed denial-of-service attacks, culminating in what amounted to an exit scam before law enforcement had unmasked who was behind it. The Justice Department separately seized $75 million worth of cryptocurrency during its broader investigation into the marketplace.
Pavey, 41, of Ormond Beach, Florida, who used the alias Dopenugget, pleaded guilty to his own role in Empire Market in 2025 and is scheduled to be sentenced later this month. Combined cryptocurrency forfeitures between Pavey and Hamilton exceed 2,800 Bitcoin, according to BleepingComputer's reporting on the case.
Part of a Broader Federal Crackdown
Hamilton's sentence places him alongside other dark web kingpins who have drawn lengthy federal prison terms in recent years. Incognito Market founder Rui-Siang Lin, who operated under the pseudonym Pharaoh from 2020 to 2024, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court in February 2026 to 30 years and ordered to forfeit $105 million after facilitating over $100 million in online drug sales. Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht received two concurrent life sentences plus 40 years in May 2015, according to Department of Justice records, though he was later pardoned in January 2025 after serving 11 years.
The Justice Department has made dark web platform takedowns a priority, also targeting sites known as BreachForums, BidenCash and Archetyp. On October 8, three days after Hamilton was sentenced, the department announced a plea deal with a 42-year-old cashout operator behind a scheme called Your Mule Cashout, which organized a network of 15,000 money mules and was used to launder at least $10 million stolen by hackers from 750 bank accounts. That operator was arrested in the Republic of Georgia and now faces up to 50 years in jail.
Federal authorities have also moved aggressively against the financial plumbing that platforms like Empire Market depended on. Hoodline reported in June that federal prosecutors in Philadelphia indicted two operators of the cryptocurrency mixer AudiA6 for laundering $389 million in illicit funds, part of the same push to dismantle the mixing services that helped dark web vendors hide their transactions. Hoodline previously covered Hamilton's guilty plea in January, and this sentencing marks the resolution of that case.
