Shortly earlier than AlphaBay took the highest spot on the darkish internet, Alpha02 modified his username on the positioning to easily “admin” and introduced that he would not settle for any personal messages despatched to him by somebody aside from AlphaBay workers. As an alternative, he left a lot of the positioning’s communications work to his second in command and chief of safety, a personality who glided by the identify of DeSnake.
The Alpha02 moniker served its goal, giving the positioning its preliminary credibility. Any further, whoever was behind supposed, like discreet felony bosses all over the world, to slide into the shadows, rake his fortune as discreetly and as anonymously as attainable.
On the time of Alpha02’s renaming, that fortune was rising at an unprecedented price: as of October 2015, AlphaBay had over 200,000 customers and over 21,000 drug product listings, in comparison with simply 12,000 listings on Silk Street. at its peak. By mid-2016, AlphaBay exceeded Agora’s most promote price of $350,000 per day, in accordance with Carnegie Mellon researchers. It had turn out to be not solely the biggest black market on the darkish internet, but in addition the biggest cryptocurrency black market of all time. And he continued to develop wildly.
For Grant Rabenn, the Fresno-based prosecutor, it was clear that Alpha02 was now essentially the most wished man on the darkish internet; Rabenn in contrast his notoriety amongst digital crime investigators to that of Osama bin Laden. AlphaBay and Alpha02 have been invoked at each cybercrime regulation enforcement convention, at each interagency assembly, at each coaching occasion, Rabenn says. And because the goal on Alpha02’s again grew, so did the unstated concern that this mastermind might keep one step forward of them indefinitely.
“Is that this individual only a pure genius who has discovered each attainable mistake?” Rabenn remembers questioning. “Has this particular person discovered the proper nation with the suitable IT infrastructure to run a market, and is he in a position to bribe the officers there so we by no means contact him?”
“As the times glided by, there was an increasing number of of a sense that this was maybe essentially the most particular,” Rabenn says. “You begin to marvel: is that this the Michael Jordan of the darkish internet?
However Rabenn adopted these Alpha02 discussions from a distance. The concept that his Fresno workforce might truly tackle the darkish internet’s Michael Jordan had by no means occurred to him. “You do not count on individuals like us to assault a website like this,” he says merely.
CHAPTER 2
THE BOARD
Earlier than Grant Rabenn turned a federal prosecutor, his second job exterior of regulation college was at a boutique agency in Washington, D.C., devoted to defending white-collar criminals. The younger lawyer with darkish pores and skin, black hair and a Hollywood smile ended up representing Russian oligarchs and company executives accused of corrupting overseas governments. “Very attention-grabbing, rich individuals attempting to cover their property and keep away from scrutiny”, as he described them, or alternatively, “James Bond characters who journey all over the world with suitcases full of money” .
Rabenn was captivated by these glimpses right into a world of billions of {dollars} shifting in invisible transactions. However he additionally discovered he admired and envied the prosecutors on the opposite facet of the desk – the best way they labored within the public curiosity and possessed a level of autonomy, selecting the instances they might pursue. So he began making use of for jobs on the Division of Justice, ultimately discovering one in Fresno.