Bryan Connor Herrell, 25, from Colorado, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for his involvement as Admin on the Dark Web marketplace AlphaBay.
According judicial documents , between May 2016 and July 2017, Herrell acted as AlphaBay Administrator, nicknamed "Penissmith" and "Botah".
During this period, it settled more than 20.000 transactions between AlphaBay suppliers and buyers, and was rewarded with Bitcoin for its services by the owner of AlphaBay.
Herrell was charged with racketeering, 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 he faced a maximum statutory 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 revealed by the FBI. Cazes managed to raise more than $ 23 million in cryptocurrencies during AlphaBay, and held real money in various bank accounts in Thailand, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and St. Vincent.
Thai authorities also seized cars and real estate, valued at approximately $12,5 million. Cazes' indictment was dropped after he was found dead in his cell a week after his arrest on July 12, 2017.
According to a US Department of Justice press release, the AlpaBay investigation is still ongoing and will not close until all former drug traffickers are found and convicted.
AlphaBay was considered the largest online drug market, with FBI Director Mr. McCabe saying at the time that it was ten times the size of Silk Road, with more than 200.000 users and about 40.000 suppliers.
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.
