NTU top student involved in dark web drug trafficking exceeding $100 million! "Pharaoh" Lin Ruixiang sentenced to 30 years in the U.S.

Rui-Siang Lin, a 24-year-old Taiwanese man who previously served as a substitute diplomat for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison by a New York court on Tuesday (the 3rd) for operating the dark web drug market “Incognito Market.” This is the largest online drug trafficking prosecution in the U.S. since the Silk Road dark web marketplace.

Lin has admitted to multiple charges including conspiracy to distribute drugs, money laundering, and conspiracy to sell counterfeit pharmaceuticals in December 2024. The judge ordered him to undergo five years of supervised release after serving his sentence and confiscated over $100 million in illegal assets.

U.S. prosecutors stated that Lin, under the alias “Pharoah,” created and operated Incognito Market while studying at National Taiwan University. From October 2020 to March 2024, he facilitated approximately 640,000 illegal drug transactions worth over $105 million, earning a 5% commission on each transaction, resulting in illegal profits of several million dollars.

In a statement, Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said: “Rui-Siang Lin is one of the most notorious drug traffickers in the world. He used the internet to sell over $105 million worth of illegal drugs in the U.S. and globally, profiting millions of dollars, but his crimes have had devastating consequences. He caused at least one death, worsened the opioid crisis, and brought irreplaceable pain to over 470,000 drug users and their families.”

Lin previously used his expertise in information technology to serve as a substitute diplomat at the International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF), stationed in Saint Lucia, a Caribbean diplomatic country. He was scheduled to retire in July 2024 but took leave in May of the same year to return to Asia and was arrested in New York en route.

Ironically, during his time as a technical assistant in Saint Lucia, he also taught local police how to combat cybercrime and analyze cryptocurrency flows as an expert. However, while instructing law enforcement on how to “catch ghosts,” he was secretly lurking in the depths of the dark web, commanding a vast drug empire as the “Pharoah,” exemplifying a double life at its extreme.