Kingdom Market Operator Pleads Guilty After Airport Arrest
A 33-year-old Slovakian man who ran Kingdom Market has pleaded guilty after customs inspectors at Newark Airport found crypto wallets and devices linking him directly to the darknet marketplace.
Alan Bill, a 33-year-old Slovakian national who operated Kingdom Market under the aliases "Vend0r" and "KingdomOfficial," has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances for running the darknet marketplace from March 2021 through December 2023.
Kingdom Market sold fentanyl, methamphetamine, stolen identities, counterfeit money, malware, and fake passports. Transactions were conducted in Bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero, and Zcash. When German authorities seized the marketplace's infrastructure in December 2023, it had 42,000 items listed, hundreds of registered sellers, and tens of thousands of customer accounts.
Bill was arrested December 15, 2023 at Newark Liberty International Airport. Customs inspectors found two cell phones, a laptop, a thumb drive, and a cryptocurrency hardware wallet linking him to Kingdom Market.
The investigation began in July 2022. Federal undercover agents made purchases from Kingdom Market: methamphetamine, fentanyl, and a fraudulent U.S. passport shipped to Missouri. Bill admitted receiving crypto from a Kingdom Market wallet and helping create the marketplace's pages on Reddit and Dread.
Financial records showed Bill made unexplained cash deposits totaling over €189,000 into his Slovakian bank accounts between November 2021 and April 2023.
The takedown was coordinated between Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), the Frankfurt internet-crime unit (ZIT), and agencies from the United States, Ukraine, Moldova, and Switzerland. Server infrastructure was seized December 16, 2023. German authorities reported 3,600 of the 42,000 listed items came from German sellers.
Under his plea agreement, Bill will surrender the Kingdommarket.so and Kingdommarket.live domains and forfeit cryptocurrency from a digital wallet. Sentencing is May 5. He faces 5 to 40 years in federal prison and up to $5 million in fines.
Kingdom Market launched after Dream Market, Wall Street Market, and Empire Market shut down. Bill accepted multiple cryptocurrencies and built presence on Reddit and Dread to draw users from the collapsed markets.
The case follows a pattern in darknet prosecutions: international cooperation, undercover purchases, financial investigation, and physical evidence seized during travel. Bill operated from Slovakia using cryptocurrency and international servers. The crypto wallet in his luggage and €189,000 in unexplained deposits connected the dots.
