A federal judge in Chicago sentenced Raheim Hamilton, co-creator of the darknet marketplace Empire Market, to 40 years in prison and a $5 million fine, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois announced Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Steven C. Seeger handed down the sentence Monday. Hamilton, 30, of Suffolk, Virginia, pleaded guilty earlier this year to a drug conspiracy charge. He agreed to forfeit roughly 1,230 BTC and 24.4 ETH, along with three properties in Virginia.

How big was Empire Market?

Hamilton co-owned and operated the site with Thomas Pavey from 2018 to 2020. During that window, Empire Market facilitated more than four million transactions between buyers and vendors worth over $430 million, according to prosecutors. Every transaction was denominated in cryptocurrency.

Drug sales accounted for nearly $375 million of the total. Seizure records cited in the case itemized the volumes:

• At least 13.3 kilograms of fentanyl
• 447 kilograms of cocaine
• 103 kilograms of heroin

The marketplace also trafficked in stolen account credentials and personal information, counterfeit currency, and hacking tools.

What operational choices drove the case?

Hamilton and Pavey required cryptocurrency for every purchase and actively encouraged users to route funds through tumbling and mixing services — a design choice that prosecutors treated as evidence of intent to evade financial surveillance. The operators also let buyers rate vendors on how effectively they concealed drugs in shipment, formalizing operational tradecraft as a feature of the platform.

Empire Market launched in February 2018, months after law enforcement took down AlphaBay, and quickly became the dominant Western darknet market, according to blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs. It went offline in August 2020 in what users widely believed was a $30 million exit scam.

What happens next?

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. Judge Seeger is scheduled to sentence him later this month.

The Hamilton sentence lands amid a broader enforcement cycle against darknet operators. In February, Rui-Siang Lin, who ran the Incognito Market narcotics platform, received a 30-year prison term over a marketplace that processed more than $105 million in drug sales.

With both Empire Market architects now convicted and the second sentencing on the docket this month, U.S. authorities have effectively closed the books on the platform that succeeded AlphaBay — and set a benchmark for how crypto-native marketplaces will be prosecuted going forward.