Bryan Connor Herrell, 25, of Colorado, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for participating as an administrator in the Dark Web AlphaBay marketplace.
According judicial documents , between May 2016 and July 2017, Herrell acted as AlphaBay Administrator, nicknamed "Penissmith" and "Botah".
During this time, he settled more than 20.000 transactions between AlphaBay suppliers and buyers, and was rewarded with Bitcoin for his services by the owner of AlphaBay.
Herrell was charged with extortion, according to the indictment filed in December 2017 and pleaded guilty to the charges on January 27, 2020. The court sentenced him to 11 years in prison while facing a maximum legal sentence of 20 years.
AlpaBay creator Alexandre Cazes, Canadian was also arrested at his residence in Bangkok, Thailand, in June 2017, by the Royal Thai Police and with the assistance of the FBI and the DEA.
His identity was discovered by the FBI. Cazes managed to win over 23 millions dollars in cryptocurrencies during AlphaBay's operation, and held real money in various bank accounts in Thailand, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Saint Vincent.
Thai authorities also seized cars and real estate, valued at approximately $12,5 million. Cazes' indictment was filed after he was found dead in his cell one weekteam after his arrest on 12 July 2017.
According to a press release from the Ministry of Justice of USA, the AlpaBay investigation is still active and will not be closed until all former drug market operators are found and convicted.
AlphaBay was considered the largest online drug market, with FBI Director McCabe saying at the time that it was ten times larger than Silk Road, with more than 200.000 users and about 40.000 vendors.
By conservative estimates, AlphaBay traded $ 2014 billion from its inception in 1. Transactions were paid for in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
AlphaBay marketplace went down the Dark Web after one police joint operation in July 2017, both in Canada and in Thailand, as part of an operation led by the FBI and the DEA, known as Bayonet.
