updated 2mo ago
American Kingpin: Catching the Billion-Dollar Baron of the Dark Web
“I’ve had my youth, and I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age.”
from American Kingpin: Catching the Billion-Dollar Baron of the Dark Web by Nick Bilton
Bone marrow, for example, sold for as much as $23,000 a gram (compared with $60 a gram for cocaine).
from American Kingpin: Catching the Billion-Dollar Baron of the Dark Web by Nick Bilton
thousands of men and women wake up and move toward several enormous factories. They all wear the same uniform—a flamingo-pink jumpsuit and matching rose cap. The workers never pause, going day and night, trading out their positions like cogs being swapped out of a clock that is incapable of stopping. For hours upon hours, day after day, they will a
... See morefrom American Kingpin: Catching the Billion-Dollar Baron of the Dark Web by Nick Bilton
Sometimes he listened to Hope 89.1, a local Christian radio station that would whisper the Lord’s Prayer into his ear, promising that if Carl followed the ways of the Bible and did the right thing, he would be granted the life he had always wanted.
from American Kingpin: Catching the Billion-Dollar Baron of the Dark Web by Nick Bilton
“I think a man is his own God and can decide for himself what’s right and wrong,” Ross said. “As a man, I decide for myself.”
from American Kingpin: Catching the Billion-Dollar Baron of the Dark Web by Nick Bilton
How quickly life changes. One minute you’re making $300 a week as a college researcher. You’re sleeping in a basement and your only belongings are two black garbage bags, one full of clean clothes, the other dirty, and your biggest worry in the world is whether the pretty girl with the black curly hair whom you just met at the drum circle will call
... See morefrom American Kingpin: Catching the Billion-Dollar Baron of the Dark Web by Nick Bilton
With these hints, and others, he searched through the list of incoming passengers arriving at O’Hare who fit his profile. Eventually he identified an inbound passenger who he believed would be smuggling the drug.
from American Kingpin: Catching the Billion-Dollar Baron of the Dark Web by Nick Bilton
MOST PEOPLE GO through life thinking that tomorrow they’re going to do something great. Tomorrow will be the day that they wake up and discover what they were put on this earth to do. But then tomorrow comes—and goes. As does the next day. Before long, they realize that there aren’t that many tomorrows left.
from American Kingpin: Catching the Billion-Dollar Baron of the Dark Web by Nick Bilton
The online world was his stage; he just needed to decide who would come out from behind the curtain.
from American Kingpin: Catching the Billion-Dollar Baron of the Dark Web by Nick Bilton
The decision about where to stay was simple. His pal from Austin, René Pinnell, who now lived in San Francisco, and his girlfriend, Selena, offered up a spare room in their small but welcoming apartment.
from American Kingpin: Catching the Billion-Dollar Baron of the Dark Web by Nick Bilton