EMPIRE MARKET CO-CREATOR SENTENCED TO 40 YEARS OVER $430M DARK WEB BAZAAR

Summary from the TLDR Crypto newsletter

Raheim Hamilton, co-creator of Empire Market, received a 40-year federal prison sentence and a $5 million fine on October 9 for running a dark web marketplace that processed over 4 million transactions totaling $430 million between February 2018 and August 2020. The platform accepted only cryptocurrency and encouraged vendors to use tumbling and mixing services, with drug sales accounting for roughly $375 million of volume. Prosecutors seized approximately 1,230 Bitcoin and 24.4 Ether from Hamilton. Co-creator Thomas Pavey faces forfeiture of roughly 1,584 Bitcoin, gold bars, and real estate before his own sentencing later in October. The platform shut down in August 2020 in an alleged $30 million exit scam, and the combined recovery of 2,800-plus Bitcoin across both defendants demonstrates that chain analysis pierced mixing-service obfuscation at this scale.