Raheim Hamilton, a 30-year-old from Suffolk, Virginia, was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison and fined $5 million for helping build and run Empire Market, a dark web bazaar that moved drugs, stolen logins and counterfeit cash for three years. Judge Steven C. Seeger imposed the term in Chicago, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced it on Oct. 7.
Hamilton did not run the site alone. A second man, Thomas Pavey, is still waiting for his own sentence.
Two owners and one drug conspiracy count
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois says in its sentencing release that Hamilton co-owned and operated Empire Market from 2018 to 2020 with Pavey, a 41-year-old from Ormond Beach, Florida. Pavey pleaded guilty last year to a federal drug conspiracy charge and is due before Seeger later this month. Hamilton, who went by “Sydney” and “ZeroAngel,” also pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy earlier in 2026, and BleepingComputer reported that he admitted designing the market to help users evade police and launder money.
The plea agreement shows how narrow the conviction is. Hamilton pleaded to Count Two, a conspiracy to distribute at least one kilogram of heroin, five kilograms of cocaine and 500 grams of methamphetamine, and prosecutors agreed to move to dismiss the remaining counts after sentencing. The agreement puts the anticipated advisory guideline range at life, against a statutory floor of 10 years. Prosecutors expected sentencing enhancements for importing methamphetamine, for mass marketing through an interactive computer service, for making crime a livelihood and for an aggravating role, and the 40-year term the judge chose sits far below the life range the guidelines pointed to.
The case against him reached back before Empire. The same indictment charged Hamilton and Pavey with selling counterfeit U.S. currency on AlphaBay, an earlier dark web market, between 2016 and 2017, and Hamilton’s plea agreement admits that conduct as part of the factual basis. Counts in the indictment also covered access device conspiracy, for trafficking in stolen card data and account credentials, and a money laundering conspiracy to conceal the proceeds, though only the drug count survived to sentencing.
The $430 million ledger
The figure in the sentence comes from the government’s own accounting of the site. Prosecutors say Empire facilitated more than four million transactions valued at over $430 million, and the 2024 charging announcement, dated June 14, 2024, used the same number when a Chicago grand jury returned a superseding indictment against both men. Hamilton’s plea agreement carries a more exact total of about $432.95 million in net sales, of which roughly $374 million came from controlled substances.
Drugs were the dominant business. The sentencing release cites quantities of about 13,314 grams of fentanyl, 446,683 grams of cocaine, 71,992 grams of methamphetamine and 103,396 grams of heroin. The site also listed compromised account credentials, stolen personal information, counterfeit currency and hacking tools, which is why a case built around narcotics also reaches ordinary people whose logins were sold.
U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros announced the sentence, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Marie E. Ursini handled the prosecution. Investigators came from the FBI’s Chicago field office, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Chicago division and Homeland Security Investigations in New York, the postal inspectors’ role reflecting the mailed parcels that carried the drugs.
Moderators, tumblers and the 2020 shutdown
According to the superseding indictment, the owners kept a share of transactions and used it to pay themselves and a staff of moderators who settled disputes between buyers and vendors. BleepingComputer counts about five moderators supervised by Hamilton. The indictment cites an October 2018 advertisement on the site that promoted tumbling services as a way to erase the trail between Empire Market and a buyer’s coins, and the sentencing release adds that the operators let users rate vendors on how well they concealed shipments.
The government says it made undercover purchases between April 2019 and May 2020 and intercepted a package holding 443.5 grams of methamphetamine ordered through the site. The market peaked in August 2020 with about 1.68 million registered users, more than 5,000 vendors and nearly 360,000 buyers, and the indictment dates its operation through August 22, 2020, the point at which the site stopped running. Hamilton also supervised the moderators personally, according to BleepingComputer, a managerial role that the plea agreement lists among his admitted duties.
Forfeiture terms reach well beyond the prison term. Hamilton gives up about 1,230 bitcoin, 24.4 Ether and three Virginia properties, and prosecutors announced about $75 million in seized cryptocurrency when the case was unsealed. Pavey has agreed to surrender about 1,584 bitcoin, two boxes of 25-ounce gold bars, three cars and two Florida properties, and his sentencing is the next fixed date in the case.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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