Alan Bill, a 33-year-old Slovakian man from Bratislava, was sentenced Thursday to 200 months (16 years and 8 months) in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Cristian M. Stevens for his role in operating Kingdom Market, a darknet marketplace that ran from March 2021 to December 2023. Bill pleaded guilty in January to one felony count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, admitting he provided web-administration services for the site, received cryptocurrency from a Kingdom-linked wallet, helped create Kingdom forum pages on Reddit and Dread, and posted on the marketplace's social media accounts. The judge found Bill was a leader or organizer of the conspiracy and was aware of what vendors were selling on the platform.
Kingdom Market facilitated thousands of transactions involving illegal drugs, stolen financial information, fraudulent identification documents, counterfeit currencies, and computer malware, with payments made in cryptocurrency. Server records showed more than 1,500 heroin sales and nearly 600 sales of purported Oxycodone, with prosecutors stating Bill and his co-conspirators knew fentanyl was being mixed into other products. Undercover federal investigators purchased fentanyl, methamphetamine, and a U.S. passport from the marketplace. Bill was arrested on December 15, 2023, at Newark Liberty International Airport with electronic devices containing evidence of his involvement, and he agreed to forfeit five types of cryptocurrency along with the Kingdommarket[.]live and Kingdommarket[.]so domains, which are now defunct.
