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An FBI informant helped manage the Incognito dark web market for nearly two years while it sold millions in narcotics.
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The informant allegedly approved fentanyl-laced drug sales even after users reported hospitalizations and near-deaths.
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A grieving father learned in court that the FBI’s assets may have overseen sales of the pills that killed his son.
The FBI’s secret partner in charge of running one dark web drug market allegedly allowed dealers to sell pills laced with fentanyl.
Apparently, one of the drug sales approved under his watch resulted in the death of a 27-year-old young man, son of a doctor in Arkansas.
The case is currently in court, and the site administrator, a Taiwanese man aged 25, might be going to prison for 30 years.
A Father’s Worst Day Gets Worse
Earlier this month, in a courtroom in Manhattan, the victim’s father, David Churchill, narrated what happened in September 2022. That’s when the Arkansas doctor found the dead body of his son, Reed, on the floor after ingesting a fatal dose of fentanyl pills.
Reed was a star tennis player dealing with an injury. He bought what he thought were oxycodone pills online, not knowing the pills contained fentanyl. It killed him instantly.
Churchill told Lin Rui-Siang, the defendant, to remember his face while he’s in jail. Lin is a 25-year-old Taiwanese, the operator of Incognito, the dark web market where the victim bought the fake pills. Lin will be facing a prison sentence of 30 years, one of the longest sentences ever for dark web drug sales.
This case echoes another major dark web drug prosecution where a US man recently pleaded guilty to running a multi-state dark web drug ring, demonstrating that federal authorities are aggressively pursuing everyone from international marketplace operators to domestic dealers who use the dark web to flood communities with deadly narcotics.
But here’s where the case gets intense. Minutes after Churchill spoke, Lin’s lawyer dropped a bombshell. The FBI had its own person inside Incognito’s leadership for almost two years.
The Informant Who Could Have Stopped It
Court filings now show an FBI “confidential human source” worked as a top moderator on Incognito. This person had the power to kick vendors off the site, including ones selling fentanyl, which the market supposedly banned. But according to Lin’s defense team, the informant did the opposite.
In November 2023, a user reported that a dealer’s pills sent his mom to the hospital. “Someone almost died,” the message read. All the informant did was to refund the transaction; he never removed the vendor.
Another user complained that the same dealer’s pills “ALMOST KILLED ME.” The informant again let the dealer responsible stay. That vendor went on to fill more than a thousand more orders.
Lin himself claims the informant was a full partner, not some low-level helper. The informant even told the FBI they handled “95 percent” of the site’s transactions.
Lin told WIRED from jail that the informant was literally in charge of running the whole site. They were the actual administrator in charge of every aspect of site operation that didn’t require technical skills, according to Lin.
The Red Flag They Ignored
Lin had programmed Incognito to flag suspicious listings. Words like “potent opioids” triggered alerts. The informant’s job was to act on those flags.
In September 2022, an alert popped up for a vendor called RedLightLabs, but the informant ignored it. Less than a week later, RedLightLabs sold Reed Churchill those deadly pills. Two men running that account later pleaded guilty to selling fentanyl to five people who died.
The prosecution argues the informant was just following orders from Lin. They say the FBI needed to keep the site running to catch the real kingpin. Assistant US Attorney Ryan Finkel told the judge that it wasn’t the government running Incognito; the defendant, Lin, did.
Judge Skeptical About the FBI’s Role
Judge Colleen McMahon wasn’t buying all of it. She wondered why the government let such a thing go on for the period of time it did.
She also rejected arguments about whether the FBI informant was the site’s ‘moderator’ or its ‘administrator.’ Judge McMahon said she doesn’t care what title the informant held. “He was an FBI asset,” simple.
Still, she gave Lin 30 years, saying the severity of his offense outweighs any argument the lawyers could make. That Lin was the one on trial, not the government.
The Question Nobody’s Answered
David Churchill learned about the FBI informant the same day he addressed the court. He feels no anger toward the bureau.
He said he didn’t want to blame the FBI for what happened since it won’t bring his son back. However, he does wish the FBI could be more aggressive in shutting down such marketplaces.
Lin’s attorney, Noam Biale, pushes harder. He says the informant could have removed fentanyl vendors without blowing anyone’s cover, and at the same time, save lives. The FBI hasn’t made any comment regarding the matter. And also, the Department of Justice won’t say anything outside of its court filings.
Lin is now appealing his sentence. He claims he had diplomatic immunity while working at Taiwan’s consulate in St. Lucia. His job there? Training cops to fight crypto crime.
