Empire Market Owner Sentenced to 40 Years Over £330 Million Dark Web Operation

Raheim Hamilton, the 30-year-old co-creator of the Empire Market dark web platform, has been sentenced to 40 years in federal prison for facilitating more than $430 million (£330 million) in illegal transactions.

The sentencing follows Hamilton’s guilty plea for his role in owning and operating the marketplace, which became one of the largest illicit platforms on the dark web following the 2017 shutdown of AlphaBay. Operating between 2018 and 2020, the site processed over 4 million transactions between vendors and buyers.

According to documents released by the US Department of Justice, Hamilton—known online by the pseudonyms “Sydney” and “ZeroAngel”—managed a sophisticated criminal infrastructure that hosted approximately 1.68 million registered users and over 5,000 vendors at its peak.

Scale of Illegal Narcotics Trade

While the market facilitated the sale of stolen credentials, hacking tools, and counterfeit currency, narcotics formed the core of its business. Drug sales accounted for nearly $375 million of the total volume, featuring more than 166,000 listings for controlled substances.

The Department of Justice confirmed that the substances sold via the platform included significant quantities of fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin. Hamilton admitted that the platform was specifically designed to help users evade law enforcement through the use of cryptocurrency and anonymising tools.

Hamilton and his co-defendant, Thomas Pavey (known as “Dopenugget”), mandated that all transactions use cryptocurrency. They actively encouraged users to employ tumbling and mixing services to hide the flow of funds and utilised encryption for all internal communications to avoid detection by authorities.

Asset Forfeiture and Market Collapse

Empire Market collapsed abruptly in August 2020 following persistent distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The shutdown was widely regarded as an “exit scam” by the dark web community after funds held in escrow accounts were not returned to customers or vendors.

As part of the legal proceedings, authorities have seized $75 million in cryptocurrency. Hamilton has agreed to forfeit approximately 1,230 Bitcoin and 24.4 Ether, alongside three properties in Virginia. Pavey, who is scheduled for sentencing later this month, will forfeit 1,584 Bitcoin, gold bars, and several vehicles.

The investigation involved extensive undercover operations between 2019 and 2020, during which law enforcement agents successfully purchased quantities of methamphetamine and heroin via the marketplace to gather evidence against the administrators and verify the site’s logistical operations.