06/18/2024

Dark Web Marketplace Owners Charged With Facilitating $430M in Illegal Goods Sales Following Joint HSI New York Investigation

Homeland Security Investigations

The superseding indictment was announced June 14 by HSI New York Special Agent in Charge Ivan J. Arvelo, acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Morris Pasqual, FBI Chicago Special Agent in Charge Robert W. “Wes” Wheeler Jr., and U.S. Postal Inspection Service Chicago Inspector in Charge Ruth Mendonça.

“As alleged, the defendants attempted to utilize the darknet in furtherance of their drug sale operation to the tune of $60 million-worth of cryptocurrency,” said Arvelo. “HSI New York’s El Dorado Task Force Dark Web and Cryptocurrency investigators are equipped with the skills to identify money laundering, cybercrimes, and other illicit schemes and in turn prevent such offenses from impacting the safety and security of Americans. HSI is proud to stand with our law enforcement partners at the forefront of confronting the drug epidemic head-on at a time when illegal narcotics distribution is causing an alarming number of overdose deaths nationwide.”

Thomas Pavey, also known as Dopenugget, 38, of Ormond Beach, Fla., and Raheim Hamilton, also known as Sydney and Zero Angel, 28, of Suffolk, Va., owned and operated Empire Market from 2018 to 2020, during which time they facilitated approximately four million transactions between vendors and buyers valued at more than $430 million, according to a superseding indictment returned June 13 in U.S. District Court in Chicago. The indictment charges Pavey and Hamilton with conspiring with each other and others to engage in drug trafficking, computer fraud, access device fraud, counterfeiting, and money laundering.

Pavey and Hamilton are in U.S. law enforcement custody. Arraignments in federal court in Chicago have not yet been scheduled.

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