Kingdom Market administrator given 16-year sentence

One of the leading figures behind a popular dark web marketplace was sentenced to more than 16 years in prison this week.

Slovakian national Alan Bill, 33, pleaded guilty in January to a conspiracy to distribute controlled substances charge after admitting to his role in running Kingdom Market — a platform used by drug dealers and cybercriminals between March 2021 and December 2023. 

He was arrested on December 15, 2023 at Newark Airport before German law enforcement agencies seized Kingdom Market servers and shut the platform down. 

Kingdom Market was one of the leading criminal platforms offering illegal drugs, stolen financial information, fake IDs and currency, malware and more. Bill admitted to prosecutor charges that he assisted in “maintaining or operating Kingdom by providing or procuring web-administration services.” 

Bill was paid by Kingdom Market to create forum pages on other social media sites and to post on behalf of the platform. He also mediated some transactions and was paid in cryptocurrency. 

Prosecutors said the servers seized in the German raids showed more than 1,500 sales of heroin and 600 sales of Oxycodone — all of which Bill knew was being cut with fentanyl. Court documents said federal investigators were able to buy an array of drugs and a fake U.S. passport off of the site. 

During his arrest in 2023, police found electronic devices that proved Bill was involved with Kingdom Market. 

“Alan Bill helped run a darknet market that sold stolen identity and financial information, counterfeit currency and illegal drugs, including bogus prescription drugs containing fentanyl,” said U.S. Attorney Thomas Albus. 

German police said they found thousands of customer accounts and several hundred seller accounts during the takedown. The website's operators accepted bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero and Zcash cryptocurrencies for payment. They also received a 3% commission for processing the sales of illegal goods via the platform.

U.S. law enforcement agencies worked closely with Germany on the Kingdom Market takedown operation, along with police from Switzerland, Moldova and Ukraine.

The DOJ said Bill sought to downplay his role in the operation during his sentencing hearing on Thursday, but U.S. District Judge Cristian Stevens said the evidence showed that he was a key leader of the marketplace. 

“It’s hard to even imagine the amount of misery that the defendant’s actions have caused,” Stevens said on Thursday.