(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Lawyers for a man convicted of running a dark web drug market revealed Thursday that he had help from none other than the FBI.
The convict, Lin Rui-Siang, was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment on Thursday for his role in operating Incognito, a dark web site that facilitated more than $100 million in narcotics before it ceased operation in 2024—as reported Friday by tech publication WIRED. Before his sentencing, Rui-Siang’s lawyers filed court records detailing the FBI’s involvement in the illicit operation as part of a bid for leniency.
According to the lawyers, Lin was recruited by two other administrators in 2020 to help create Incognito. Two years later, an FBI informant replaced one of the administrators, and helped boost Incognito’s sales from about $1 million in total to over $103 million by March 2024.
“After [the FBI informant] got Incognito listed on DarkNetLive [REDACTED], the site’s orders increased by one hundred-fold,” Lin’s lawyers said in a Thursday filing. “Under the guise of [the informant], the FBI directly handled a substantial portion of Incognito’s operations—specifically, managing the sale of narcotics.”
"CHS––backed by his FBI handlers––encouraged the sale of fentanyl on Incognito." https://t.co/Cb4JC7aBGz pic.twitter.com/NUIy71FP7u
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) February 20, 2026
According to the filing, the FBI informant was the one who pushed for Incognito to be a fentanyl hub.
“[Confidential Human Source]––backed by his FBI handlers––encouraged the sale of fentanyl on Incognito. Within months of joining Incognito, CHS tried to lift Incognito’s ban on fentanyl sales,” the filing says. “In a conversation with Mr. Lin on July 19, 2022, CHS argued that permitting fentanyl to be sold on Incognito was more consistent with the dark web’s ‘energy of free markets, allowing people to put whatever they want in their bodies it’s their choice.’”
The Justice Department, for its part, strongly disagreed with the defense’s characterization of the FBI informant’s actions. Prosecutors reportedly argued that “Lin cannot seriously dispute that the decision to allow opioid sales on Incognito was his own.”
On Thursday, Judge Colleen McMahon expressed skepticism about the FBI’s activity, but nevertheless said that Lin was still guilty of his crimes.
“I’m somewhat skeptical that the government, having infiltrated this operation, had to let it go on for as long as it did,” she said in the hearing, according to WIRED.
“The enormity of what you did outweighs any argument they could make, including the argument the government was complicit in this,” McMahon reportedly told Lin, adding that “the government is not on trial here.”
Lin has a pending appeal in the case.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
