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Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency
Over the last decade, a single innovation has massively fueled digital black markets: cryptocurrency. Crime lords inhabiting lawless corners of the internet have operated more freely—whether in drug dealing, money laundering, or human trafficking—than their analog counterparts could have ever dreamed of. By transacting not in dollars or pounds but in currencies with anonymous ledgers, overseen by no government and beholden to no bankers, these black marketeers have sought to rob law enforcement of their chief method of cracking down on illicit finance: following the money.
But what if the centerpiece of this dark economy held a secret, fatal flaw? What if their currency wasn’t so cryptic after all? An investigator using the right mixture of technical wizardry, financial forensics, and old-fashioned persistence could uncover an entire world of wrongdoing.
Tracers in the Dark is a story of crime and pursuit unlike any other. With unprecedented access to the major players in federal law enforcement and private industry, veteran cybersecurity reporter Andy Greenberg tells an astonishing saga of criminal empires built and destroyed. He introduces an IRS agent with a defiant streak, a bitcoin-tracing Danish entrepreneur, and a colorful ensemble of hard-boiled agents and prosecutors as they delve deep into the crypto-underworld. The result is a thrilling, globe-spanning story of dirty cops, drug bazaars, trafficking rings, and the biggest take-down of an online narcotics market in the history of the internet.
Utterly of our time, Tracers in the Dark is a cat-and-mouse story and a tale of a technological one-upmanship. Filled with canny maneuvering and shocking twists, it answers a provocative question: How would some of the world’s most brazen criminals behave if they were sure they could never get caught?
But what if the centerpiece of this dark economy held a secret, fatal flaw? What if their currency wasn’t so cryptic after all? An investigator using the right mixture of technical wizardry, financial forensics, and old-fashioned persistence could uncover an entire world of wrongdoing.
Tracers in the Dark is a story of crime and pursuit unlike any other. With unprecedented access to the major players in federal law enforcement and private industry, veteran cybersecurity reporter Andy Greenberg tells an astonishing saga of criminal empires built and destroyed. He introduces an IRS agent with a defiant streak, a bitcoin-tracing Danish entrepreneur, and a colorful ensemble of hard-boiled agents and prosecutors as they delve deep into the crypto-underworld. The result is a thrilling, globe-spanning story of dirty cops, drug bazaars, trafficking rings, and the biggest take-down of an online narcotics market in the history of the internet.
Utterly of our time, Tracers in the Dark is a cat-and-mouse story and a tale of a technological one-upmanship. Filled with canny maneuvering and shocking twists, it answers a provocative question: How would some of the world’s most brazen criminals behave if they were sure they could never get caught?
367 pages, Hardcover
Published November 1, 2022
About the author
Andy Greenberg
7 books471 followersAndy Greenberg is an award-winning senior writer for WIRED, covering security, privacy, information freedom, and hacker culture. He's the author of the new book Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency. His last book was Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers.
The two books, as well as excerpts from them published in WIRED, have won awards including two Gerald Loeb Awards for International Reporting, a Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, three Deadline Club Awards from the New York Society of Professional Journalists, and the Cornelius Ryan Citation for Excellence from the Overseas Press Club. His first book, This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Hacktivists and Cypherpunks Aim to Free the World’s Information, was named one of the top ten “greatest tech books of all time” by the Verge.
Before joining WIRED in 2014, Greenberg worked as a senior reporter for Forbes magazine. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, filmmaker Malika Zouhali-Worrall.
The two books, as well as excerpts from them published in WIRED, have won awards including two Gerald Loeb Awards for International Reporting, a Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, three Deadline Club Awards from the New York Society of Professional Journalists, and the Cornelius Ryan Citation for Excellence from the Overseas Press Club. His first book, This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Hacktivists and Cypherpunks Aim to Free the World’s Information, was named one of the top ten “greatest tech books of all time” by the Verge.
Before joining WIRED in 2014, Greenberg worked as a senior reporter for Forbes magazine. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, filmmaker Malika Zouhali-Worrall.
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April 2, 2023
Greenberg shows how criminal investigators brought down dark web drug, carder, and child sexual abuse portals tracing crypto currency transactions. It’s an informative and at times gripping account as we meet dedicated investigators, investigators turned criminal, and the criminal masterminds behind the illicit sites. The book introduced me to a new world of crime and policing that operates internationally as each side uses technology to counter the other in a battle that continually escalates. For readers interested in understanding this quickly expanding area of cybercrime and the critical role cryptocurrencies play this is a very worthwhile read. My notes follow.
Greenberg explains that cryptocurrencies are not completely anonymous. He describes how the blockchain can be used to track transactions and identify users. Greenberg tells how researchers developed methods to identify transactions with common ownership and trace bitcoins through a series of transactions. This alone doesn’t identify the owner. But when combined with other information such as bitcoin keys, IP addresses, account info from subpoenaed exchanges and possible suspects the blockchain tracing methods can identify crypto owners and people running dark web portals.
Greenberg goes on to show us how these techniques have been used to help catch criminals who were using Bitcoin to hide their dealings. He begins with a brief summary of the Silk Road website and its proprietor, Ross Ulbricht, aka the Dread Pirate Roberts aka DPR. DPR ran his dark web drug emporium with impunity operating from his laptop in cafes and libraries in San Francisco. The FBI arrested DPR in 2013 having identified one of the site’s servers but not revealing all their methods. They also used an undercover agent to infiltrate DPR’s team. In a dramatic well planned move the FBI was able to snatch DPR’s laptop while he was using it giving them access to his records. Using tracing and tracking techniques Tigran Gambaryan, an IRS criminal investigator in Fresno was able to show that a DEA agent, Carl Force, had in fact been a double agent. While working the case with the FBI, Force had extorted and stolen bitcoins from DPR worth millions.
Next Greenberg recounts investigations into the hacking of the Mt. Gox exchange which subsequently failed in 2014. It had been an early leader among Bitcoin exchanges. Michael Gronager, eager to launch a startup blockchain track and trace analytics company, offered his services free to the owners of the defunct Mt Gox. Through a friend he met Gambaryan who was still investigating the Silk Road thefts. With Gronager’s help Gambaryan found there was a second double agent who had stolen Bitcoins from Silk Road, Shaun Bridges a Secret Service agent. He had cashed out his 20000 Bitcoins through Mt. Gox. Gronager’s analytical software showed that Mt Gox had been pilfered steadily for two years from an external source probably in Russia. Meanwhile Gambaryan’s analysis showed that Carl Force had cashed out his Bitcoins stolen from Silk Road at the exchange BTC-e in Russia. Then Gronager identified BTc-e as the exchange where Mt Gox’s Bitcoins were cashed out.
In 2015 Gambaryan joined the new National Cyber Investigative Joint Taskforce in Washington. NCIJT would operate with Defense, Secret Service and Homeland Security agents. BTC-e looked very suspicious cashing out Bitcoins from mysterious sources. Gambaryan with Gronager’s help and cyber analytical tools began investigating. In a lucky stroke he found the servers amazingly were not in Russia but just a few miles across the Potomac in Virginia. With more work they identified the transactions cashing out Mt. Gox’s Bitcoins and BTC-e’s owner, Alexander Vinnik as the culprit. Vinnik had stolen the Mt. Gox Bitcoins and set up his own exchange to cash them in. Vinnik was safe in Russia, until he ventured outside years later. Other investigative agencies learning of NCIJT’s success and Gronager’s role began buying his software making them much more efficient. Gronager’s company, Chainalysis took off becoming the standard used by law enforcement.
In 2015 a judge imposed a double life sentence on Silk Road’s Ross Ulbricht thinking this would discourage others. But instead, all the attention alerted people to the availability of drugs on the dark web. A new site, AlphaBay, hosted sellers and users of credit card info and drugs. Its drug business doubled. In Fresno, US Assistant District Attorney Grant Rabenn had been focused on the drug trade and turned his attention to dark web sites forming a dedicated group including IRS and Homeland Security agents. After some small-scale success, a tip came in that would identify AlphaBay’s administrator, Alexander Cazes. Rabenn reached out to the FBI and other groups that might be investigating AlphaBay forming a cross-agency team.
Cazes was a Canadian living in Bangkok working in his home from his laptop. He had accumulated tens of millions of dollars from his carder and drug portal, AlphaBay. Local DEA agents surveilled him. He lived an ostentatious lifestyle sporting around town in his Lamborghini and spending his nights womanizing. A variety of Blockchain analyzing techniques helped pinpoint his transactions and locate his servers. AlphaBay’s servers were in the Netherlands and Lithuania. The investigation became international. The Dutch were also on the heels of Hansa, the second largest online drug emporium. They planned to take it over after arresting the administrators and run it secretly for a while to collect information on sellers and users. They wanted to wait to arrest Cazes until they shut down Hanza and then do the same with AlphaBay which would now also have dealers and customers who had migrated from Hansa. Greenberg does an excellent job describing how all this coordinates and plays out in dramatic fashion.
Next Greenberg discusses Welcome to Video, a dark web portal devoted solely to child sexual abuse. The site did not accept adult porn. When the investigation started in 2017, the site had been active for two years. Unlike AlphaBay and Silk Road, Welcome to Video only did a small share of its business in Bitcoin, but Bitcoin tracing was key to pinpointing the administrator’s identity. Gambaryan, after providing some critical help in the AlphaBay investigation, was deeply involved in this one. His experience, improvements in Chainalysis and Welcome to Video’s weaker defenses allowed his team to hone in on the administrators identity faster. They would find over 250,000 videos on the server. While Greenberg does not describe them graphically, he tells us enough to understand how completely vile and disgusting these videos were. The investigators who had to watch them were totally revolted. The site had over a million members from dozens of countries downloading and uploading child videos. The investigation involved many different agencies and countries. As before the investigators wanted to run the site after arresting the administrator to catch users and providers and again Greenberg does an excellent job giving us the blow by blow.
Greenberg goes on to discuss more cases following Welcome to Video up through 2021. As Bitcoin rose dramatically in value so too did the value of laundered and illegal money. The government would confiscate Bitcoin worth over two billion dollars in a case that found a huge stash of crypto that a hacker had stolen years earlier from Silk Road. It was the largest criminal seizure of any currency ever in the US. While many illicit sites were being taken down it became a game of whack-a-mole. Increasingly administrators, servers and exchanges were in countries like Russia and North Korea where subpoenas were useless, records could not be gotten nor assets seized or administrators arrested. Ransomware greatly increased usually operating from countries where the criminals were protected. In 2020 Chainalysis tracked over $350 million in ransomware payments. BTC-e was a primary exchange used by ransomware gangs to cash in their Bitcoins. These operations were more difficult to trace. Still in the 2021 Colonial Pipeline case that shut down gas delivery in the eastern US, the FBI was able to track and recover most of the ransom paid in Bitcoins. New “privacy coins” have now appeared like Zcash and Monero that were developed to be untraceable eliminating vulnerabilities found in other crypto. However, Gronager at Chainalysis is confident they will find new vulnerabilities in these new currencies and whatever currencies come next in an ongoing cat and mouse game in a new era of cybercrime.
Greenberg explains that cryptocurrencies are not completely anonymous. He describes how the blockchain can be used to track transactions and identify users. Greenberg tells how researchers developed methods to identify transactions with common ownership and trace bitcoins through a series of transactions. This alone doesn’t identify the owner. But when combined with other information such as bitcoin keys, IP addresses, account info from subpoenaed exchanges and possible suspects the blockchain tracing methods can identify crypto owners and people running dark web portals.
Greenberg goes on to show us how these techniques have been used to help catch criminals who were using Bitcoin to hide their dealings. He begins with a brief summary of the Silk Road website and its proprietor, Ross Ulbricht, aka the Dread Pirate Roberts aka DPR. DPR ran his dark web drug emporium with impunity operating from his laptop in cafes and libraries in San Francisco. The FBI arrested DPR in 2013 having identified one of the site’s servers but not revealing all their methods. They also used an undercover agent to infiltrate DPR’s team. In a dramatic well planned move the FBI was able to snatch DPR’s laptop while he was using it giving them access to his records. Using tracing and tracking techniques Tigran Gambaryan, an IRS criminal investigator in Fresno was able to show that a DEA agent, Carl Force, had in fact been a double agent. While working the case with the FBI, Force had extorted and stolen bitcoins from DPR worth millions.
Next Greenberg recounts investigations into the hacking of the Mt. Gox exchange which subsequently failed in 2014. It had been an early leader among Bitcoin exchanges. Michael Gronager, eager to launch a startup blockchain track and trace analytics company, offered his services free to the owners of the defunct Mt Gox. Through a friend he met Gambaryan who was still investigating the Silk Road thefts. With Gronager’s help Gambaryan found there was a second double agent who had stolen Bitcoins from Silk Road, Shaun Bridges a Secret Service agent. He had cashed out his 20000 Bitcoins through Mt. Gox. Gronager’s analytical software showed that Mt Gox had been pilfered steadily for two years from an external source probably in Russia. Meanwhile Gambaryan’s analysis showed that Carl Force had cashed out his Bitcoins stolen from Silk Road at the exchange BTC-e in Russia. Then Gronager identified BTc-e as the exchange where Mt Gox’s Bitcoins were cashed out.
In 2015 Gambaryan joined the new National Cyber Investigative Joint Taskforce in Washington. NCIJT would operate with Defense, Secret Service and Homeland Security agents. BTC-e looked very suspicious cashing out Bitcoins from mysterious sources. Gambaryan with Gronager’s help and cyber analytical tools began investigating. In a lucky stroke he found the servers amazingly were not in Russia but just a few miles across the Potomac in Virginia. With more work they identified the transactions cashing out Mt. Gox’s Bitcoins and BTC-e’s owner, Alexander Vinnik as the culprit. Vinnik had stolen the Mt. Gox Bitcoins and set up his own exchange to cash them in. Vinnik was safe in Russia, until he ventured outside years later. Other investigative agencies learning of NCIJT’s success and Gronager’s role began buying his software making them much more efficient. Gronager’s company, Chainalysis took off becoming the standard used by law enforcement.
In 2015 a judge imposed a double life sentence on Silk Road’s Ross Ulbricht thinking this would discourage others. But instead, all the attention alerted people to the availability of drugs on the dark web. A new site, AlphaBay, hosted sellers and users of credit card info and drugs. Its drug business doubled. In Fresno, US Assistant District Attorney Grant Rabenn had been focused on the drug trade and turned his attention to dark web sites forming a dedicated group including IRS and Homeland Security agents. After some small-scale success, a tip came in that would identify AlphaBay’s administrator, Alexander Cazes. Rabenn reached out to the FBI and other groups that might be investigating AlphaBay forming a cross-agency team.
Cazes was a Canadian living in Bangkok working in his home from his laptop. He had accumulated tens of millions of dollars from his carder and drug portal, AlphaBay. Local DEA agents surveilled him. He lived an ostentatious lifestyle sporting around town in his Lamborghini and spending his nights womanizing. A variety of Blockchain analyzing techniques helped pinpoint his transactions and locate his servers. AlphaBay’s servers were in the Netherlands and Lithuania. The investigation became international. The Dutch were also on the heels of Hansa, the second largest online drug emporium. They planned to take it over after arresting the administrators and run it secretly for a while to collect information on sellers and users. They wanted to wait to arrest Cazes until they shut down Hanza and then do the same with AlphaBay which would now also have dealers and customers who had migrated from Hansa. Greenberg does an excellent job describing how all this coordinates and plays out in dramatic fashion.
Next Greenberg discusses Welcome to Video, a dark web portal devoted solely to child sexual abuse. The site did not accept adult porn. When the investigation started in 2017, the site had been active for two years. Unlike AlphaBay and Silk Road, Welcome to Video only did a small share of its business in Bitcoin, but Bitcoin tracing was key to pinpointing the administrator’s identity. Gambaryan, after providing some critical help in the AlphaBay investigation, was deeply involved in this one. His experience, improvements in Chainalysis and Welcome to Video’s weaker defenses allowed his team to hone in on the administrators identity faster. They would find over 250,000 videos on the server. While Greenberg does not describe them graphically, he tells us enough to understand how completely vile and disgusting these videos were. The investigators who had to watch them were totally revolted. The site had over a million members from dozens of countries downloading and uploading child videos. The investigation involved many different agencies and countries. As before the investigators wanted to run the site after arresting the administrator to catch users and providers and again Greenberg does an excellent job giving us the blow by blow.
Greenberg goes on to discuss more cases following Welcome to Video up through 2021. As Bitcoin rose dramatically in value so too did the value of laundered and illegal money. The government would confiscate Bitcoin worth over two billion dollars in a case that found a huge stash of crypto that a hacker had stolen years earlier from Silk Road. It was the largest criminal seizure of any currency ever in the US. While many illicit sites were being taken down it became a game of whack-a-mole. Increasingly administrators, servers and exchanges were in countries like Russia and North Korea where subpoenas were useless, records could not be gotten nor assets seized or administrators arrested. Ransomware greatly increased usually operating from countries where the criminals were protected. In 2020 Chainalysis tracked over $350 million in ransomware payments. BTC-e was a primary exchange used by ransomware gangs to cash in their Bitcoins. These operations were more difficult to trace. Still in the 2021 Colonial Pipeline case that shut down gas delivery in the eastern US, the FBI was able to track and recover most of the ransom paid in Bitcoins. New “privacy coins” have now appeared like Zcash and Monero that were developed to be untraceable eliminating vulnerabilities found in other crypto. However, Gronager at Chainalysis is confident they will find new vulnerabilities in these new currencies and whatever currencies come next in an ongoing cat and mouse game in a new era of cybercrime.
December 6, 2022
It’s pretty common for non-fiction titles these days to be marketed along the lines of “reads like a thriller!” — but it’s a description that rarely matches reality. So when I picked up Tracers in the Dark, I was delighted to find that every page was as propulsive and surprising as any crime novel I’ve read.
With a couple of ambitious IRS special agents leading the narrative (don’t be fooled — that group of investigators is intense), Greenberg tells the incredible story of how crypto came to be cracked. You’ll find headline-grabbing stories like the fall of dark markets Silk Road and AlphaBay as well as lesser-known misdeeds like the Border Patrol and DEA agents who got sucked into the tantalizing underbelly of Bitcoin riches.
The most heart-pounding true crime books aren’t just about blood and guts and murder — the new Wild West of crypto crime is as jaw-dropping as anything I’ve read in the genre.
With a couple of ambitious IRS special agents leading the narrative (don’t be fooled — that group of investigators is intense), Greenberg tells the incredible story of how crypto came to be cracked. You’ll find headline-grabbing stories like the fall of dark markets Silk Road and AlphaBay as well as lesser-known misdeeds like the Border Patrol and DEA agents who got sucked into the tantalizing underbelly of Bitcoin riches.
The most heart-pounding true crime books aren’t just about blood and guts and murder — the new Wild West of crypto crime is as jaw-dropping as anything I’ve read in the genre.
January 27, 2023
Tracers in the Dark is possibly the most compelling book I've ever read. It's breaking bad but conducted over the internet in real life. A fun way to learn more about crypto currencies but also with some thoughtful musings on the ethics of both the crimes and the investigations. Highly recommended to anyone interested in crime or crypto!
July 1, 2024
I received a free copy of, Lords of Crypto Crime, by Andy Greenberg, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I have heard of the dark web before, and what you can by on it, with crypto currency. This book is an interesting read about the people who use and abuse crypto currency and other laws. The people who investigate crypto currency and the dark web are amazing. I found this book to be a fascinating look at crypto currency and crime.
December 19, 2022
Want to feel smart, learn about cryptocurrency, the blockchain and law enforcement tactics to crack down on the badddest illegal activity ALL WRAPPED IN A FAST PACED THRILLER? Get thee to this book! Really liked it. Want to read it again so I can sound EVEN SMARTER at parties when I help debunk the notion that crypto is untraceable. *pushes glasses up* “Well ACTUALLY….”
I am also hugely in awe of the good people in law enforcement who don’t make much money, and work their tails off to make society a better place. I appreciate how the author detailed how the agents working on any CSAM (child sexual abuse materials) cases are irrevocably changed. Awful. Just awful. I am grateful for their service.
I am also hugely in awe of the good people in law enforcement who don’t make much money, and work their tails off to make society a better place. I appreciate how the author detailed how the agents working on any CSAM (child sexual abuse materials) cases are irrevocably changed. Awful. Just awful. I am grateful for their service.
May 4, 2023
Be careful with this book, if you start reading it, you might have to cancel all of your plans for the day. It's that addicting and its told in a way that makes it much harder to put down. The best way to describe this book would be think about those serial killer crime thriller documentaries except with cryptocurrency and you got it. This book reveals a series of the biggest cryptocurrency laundering investigations from illicit drugs, weapons, pornographic images from minors. The worst character traits of humanity being illustrated on the dark web and access to all of these things can be received through cryptocurrency. Conventional wisdom is that bitcoin in "untraceable" yet a few tinkers and talented developers were able to show this is in fact not true. These currencies can be tracked down and what happens on the blockchain is forever. One of the hallmarks of cryptocurrency is that it was supposed to decentralize power and allow citizens to be more in control of their finances than banks or governments would like you to have.
I thought this was a fascinating story about series of dark web busts and how they're all funded through crypto currencies. The bigger question you're left with is how will these currencies survive the crackdown of governments wanting to see every transaction and how they can be pinned back to the user. Indeed among far right circles and factions of the left, many believe governments being able to track your finances, how you spend your money and who you donate to can lead to an authoritarian regime. I don't know the full story of the Canadian incident where truckers were apparently protesting by blocking roads, some say the protest were for "woke ideas" others making it about workers rights. I don't know exactly what it was about hence I can't speak on it. All I can comment on is that the government through the help of the financial system were able to pinpoint individuals who donated to the strike and freeze their bank accounts. Put aside whether you agree with the reasoning behind the protests, can you imagine a scenario where a government can abuse these powers? You don't have to possess J.K Rowling's imagination to see where this can go horribly wrong. The financial system already has extremely close ties to governments as is where its hard to see where one starts and the other stops. It will be interesting to see how this power plays out in the future between government's insatiable desire to track where our money comes from in terms of crypto currencies. The hypocrisy of the richest individual's able to skirt these laws with impunity when using traditional currencies but when it comes to cryptocurrencies its treated with a different level of threat.
An interesting dynamic, personally I never believed in these cryptocurrencies. Most of its advocates are in fact anarchist developers who have 0 knowledge of the financial global system. These currencies constrict the money supply, which is a selling point to many. During the pandemic crypto exploded in value, we were told these narratives "Its a hedge against inflation" etc etc. Many believed this was true despite no evidence. As soon as inflation came, it tore down the value of these currencies and the market imploded. The market basically said "We would rather put our assets in safer places". Think about Greece, by being apart of the European Union and forfeiting their ability to hold their own currency. Every loan they make, they have to pay back. As opposed to other countries who have trillions in debt but are still able to avoid the austerity measures the people in Greece went through which wrecked the entire economy because they have their own currency. Crypto zealots don't understand this, they have these really simple notions of the financial system that are remarkably similar to the people they claim to rally against like the "old guard" or rational Chicago Economist. Crypto is not the answer to these problems, although there are currencies that are moving in the "untraceable" route, there are still ways to track them that are not full proof but provides leads which autocratic regimes can use in their own internal system and increase the probability they catch protestors. I think the push to move to a cashless world seems like it would be great for all of us but banks and government's having access to all of your finances should be cause for concern. This is labeled as a far right conspiracy by most but I am neither right nor far right and I can see the ways this power can be abused. Whenever there is power that can be abused, human nature historically has told us that it will be.
Those are my thoughts, a fun read. I am glad I picked this one up. I could see people giving it 4 stars but for me it was so captivating that I had to give it 5 stars.
I thought this was a fascinating story about series of dark web busts and how they're all funded through crypto currencies. The bigger question you're left with is how will these currencies survive the crackdown of governments wanting to see every transaction and how they can be pinned back to the user. Indeed among far right circles and factions of the left, many believe governments being able to track your finances, how you spend your money and who you donate to can lead to an authoritarian regime. I don't know the full story of the Canadian incident where truckers were apparently protesting by blocking roads, some say the protest were for "woke ideas" others making it about workers rights. I don't know exactly what it was about hence I can't speak on it. All I can comment on is that the government through the help of the financial system were able to pinpoint individuals who donated to the strike and freeze their bank accounts. Put aside whether you agree with the reasoning behind the protests, can you imagine a scenario where a government can abuse these powers? You don't have to possess J.K Rowling's imagination to see where this can go horribly wrong. The financial system already has extremely close ties to governments as is where its hard to see where one starts and the other stops. It will be interesting to see how this power plays out in the future between government's insatiable desire to track where our money comes from in terms of crypto currencies. The hypocrisy of the richest individual's able to skirt these laws with impunity when using traditional currencies but when it comes to cryptocurrencies its treated with a different level of threat.
An interesting dynamic, personally I never believed in these cryptocurrencies. Most of its advocates are in fact anarchist developers who have 0 knowledge of the financial global system. These currencies constrict the money supply, which is a selling point to many. During the pandemic crypto exploded in value, we were told these narratives "Its a hedge against inflation" etc etc. Many believed this was true despite no evidence. As soon as inflation came, it tore down the value of these currencies and the market imploded. The market basically said "We would rather put our assets in safer places". Think about Greece, by being apart of the European Union and forfeiting their ability to hold their own currency. Every loan they make, they have to pay back. As opposed to other countries who have trillions in debt but are still able to avoid the austerity measures the people in Greece went through which wrecked the entire economy because they have their own currency. Crypto zealots don't understand this, they have these really simple notions of the financial system that are remarkably similar to the people they claim to rally against like the "old guard" or rational Chicago Economist. Crypto is not the answer to these problems, although there are currencies that are moving in the "untraceable" route, there are still ways to track them that are not full proof but provides leads which autocratic regimes can use in their own internal system and increase the probability they catch protestors. I think the push to move to a cashless world seems like it would be great for all of us but banks and government's having access to all of your finances should be cause for concern. This is labeled as a far right conspiracy by most but I am neither right nor far right and I can see the ways this power can be abused. Whenever there is power that can be abused, human nature historically has told us that it will be.
Those are my thoughts, a fun read. I am glad I picked this one up. I could see people giving it 4 stars but for me it was so captivating that I had to give it 5 stars.
July 1, 2024
It was like listening to the audio description of a hollywood blockbuster. This pulled no punches and gave so much detailed insight into the murky world it was intriguing powerful and an engaging listen. Perfect for anyone who wants to get to rhe heart of this industry. The narrator was good and engaging. He was not phased when rhe subjects got messy.
Thank you do much netgallery and publisher and author and narrator for this 5 star lusten. A history that the world could do with hearing.
Thank you do much netgallery and publisher and author and narrator for this 5 star lusten. A history that the world could do with hearing.
January 23, 2023
Cryptocurrency has long fascinated me because it’s mathematics made manifest. Although our economy has long been digital, the rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies codified a cashless digital economy through arcane mathematical precepts that nevertheless gave rise to trillions of dollars of worth—even if that value is volatile at the best of times. It’s not surprising that enterprising criminal minds would try to use cryptocurrency for their dealings, and it’s not surprising that others would use math to uncover those dealings. Tracers in the Dark lays out just what this entails, how it led to successfully busting some big criminals, and what this might mean the future of digital crime, cryptocurrencies, and law enforcement.
Andy Greenberg knows how to tell a story. I have read parts of this book in his articles for Wired, along with similar coverage of cryptocurrency busts. I forgot I had read one of Greenberg’s previous books, about WikiLeaks, and enjoyed it; in retrospect, I see why. Greenberg has a knack for taking complex technological topics, like cryptocurrency, and distilling them into a form digestible even by people with a tech or math background. He cuts through the complexity, rendering it down until you can—as the tracers do—follow the money.
The book comprises five parts. In Part I, Greenberg lays out some of the biggest players: researchers, law enforcement agents, and cryptocurrency business owners who all have a role to play in the events to come. He unpacks the investigation that eventually led to the arrest of Ross Ulbricht and the shuttering of the Silk Road. Part II introduces us to the golden age of Bitcoin tracing. We learn more about how blockchain analysis software, such as that pioneered by firm Chainalysis, became an integral part of investigation by law enforcement like the FBI and IRS. Part III covers the investigations into and subsequent take down of AlphaBay, followed by the Welcome to Video saga in Part IV. The book wraps up with Part V, a look at the future of cryptocurrency tracing and blockchain analysis, especially as new cryptocurrencies like Monero and Zcash claim to be “fixing” Bitcoin’s privacy and anonymity problems.
For anyone who enjoys true crime, this book is awash with detail and compelling description. Though Greenberg has obviously chosen to emphasize the actions of certain people, I like that he doesn’t lionize any one person or try to make out anyone to be a hero. These are law enforcement agents, lawyers, etc. who are doing a job. At the same time, he also helps us see how these white-collar crimes are far from victimless. It might seem silly to some of us, spending resources on computer programs and expertise required to chase down sequences of numbers and letters through a vast database (the blockchain) in the hopes of finding out who paid whom. Why not spend that money on something more tangible, like protecting people from violent crime? As Greenberg demonstrates, it’s all connected. The dark web and cryptocurrency have together enabled criminals to more efficiently acquire and distribute everything from drugs to firearms to child sexual abuse material.
The last one was particularly hard to read about, for all the reasons you might expect. I had already read at least the beginning of the Welcome to Video story, and rereading it here, being reminded of the toll it took on the investigators and prosecutors—not to mention, of course, thinking about all the victims of the abuse—well, let’s just say that this book is not for cozy bedtime reading. Greenberg doesn’t shy away from discussing the dark stuff, hopefully with the consequence of helping readers understand that this type of internet crime is not something to be taken lightly. Just because it’s 1s and 0s on hard drives rather than something more tangible, the effects on real people are still devastating.
Tracers in the Dark also changed my mind a bit about cryptocurrency, something I didn’t expect! I have always been very skeptical about crypto ever since I learned about it. Bitcoin and its successors have always sounded like scams and schemes—great if you invested early on but far from the libertarian utopian technology some evangelists seemed to think it could be. As we’ve passed the decade mark and more and more people try to bend blockchain technology to their particular business models, my skepticism and cynicism have increased proportionally.
Yet Greenberg carefully showcases the diversity of viewpoints within the crypto community. Gronager and Meiklejohn have quite different ideas about how and why blockchain analysis should be done, for example—and Greenberg allows them both the space to explain their beliefs. As a result, I started to understand why there are still some “true believers” within the crypto community—people who don’t see cryptocurrency necessarily as an anarchic panacea for state surveillance and control but rather view it as a logical extension of existing monetary tools. While I still wouldn’t go so far as to agree with that idea, I’m more sympathetic to it than the more extreme viewpoints I’ve seen in the past. Greenberg’s diligence in seeking out contradictory opinions helped me confront my own biases and arrive at a more nuanced view of this topic.
You don’t need to understand the math behind Bitcoin to understand the effect it has had on our economy and crime. For better or worse, Bitcoin might not be poised to render fiat currency obsolete, but it’s here to stay in one form or another—and if you’re like me, you might want to see whether your pension fund invested in a cryptocurrency exchange…. Tracers in the Dark is top-notch writing in service of telling a story that anyone interested in crime, computers, mathematics, etc., would do well to hear.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
Andy Greenberg knows how to tell a story. I have read parts of this book in his articles for Wired, along with similar coverage of cryptocurrency busts. I forgot I had read one of Greenberg’s previous books, about WikiLeaks, and enjoyed it; in retrospect, I see why. Greenberg has a knack for taking complex technological topics, like cryptocurrency, and distilling them into a form digestible even by people with a tech or math background. He cuts through the complexity, rendering it down until you can—as the tracers do—follow the money.
The book comprises five parts. In Part I, Greenberg lays out some of the biggest players: researchers, law enforcement agents, and cryptocurrency business owners who all have a role to play in the events to come. He unpacks the investigation that eventually led to the arrest of Ross Ulbricht and the shuttering of the Silk Road. Part II introduces us to the golden age of Bitcoin tracing. We learn more about how blockchain analysis software, such as that pioneered by firm Chainalysis, became an integral part of investigation by law enforcement like the FBI and IRS. Part III covers the investigations into and subsequent take down of AlphaBay, followed by the Welcome to Video saga in Part IV. The book wraps up with Part V, a look at the future of cryptocurrency tracing and blockchain analysis, especially as new cryptocurrencies like Monero and Zcash claim to be “fixing” Bitcoin’s privacy and anonymity problems.
For anyone who enjoys true crime, this book is awash with detail and compelling description. Though Greenberg has obviously chosen to emphasize the actions of certain people, I like that he doesn’t lionize any one person or try to make out anyone to be a hero. These are law enforcement agents, lawyers, etc. who are doing a job. At the same time, he also helps us see how these white-collar crimes are far from victimless. It might seem silly to some of us, spending resources on computer programs and expertise required to chase down sequences of numbers and letters through a vast database (the blockchain) in the hopes of finding out who paid whom. Why not spend that money on something more tangible, like protecting people from violent crime? As Greenberg demonstrates, it’s all connected. The dark web and cryptocurrency have together enabled criminals to more efficiently acquire and distribute everything from drugs to firearms to child sexual abuse material.
The last one was particularly hard to read about, for all the reasons you might expect. I had already read at least the beginning of the Welcome to Video story, and rereading it here, being reminded of the toll it took on the investigators and prosecutors—not to mention, of course, thinking about all the victims of the abuse—well, let’s just say that this book is not for cozy bedtime reading. Greenberg doesn’t shy away from discussing the dark stuff, hopefully with the consequence of helping readers understand that this type of internet crime is not something to be taken lightly. Just because it’s 1s and 0s on hard drives rather than something more tangible, the effects on real people are still devastating.
Tracers in the Dark also changed my mind a bit about cryptocurrency, something I didn’t expect! I have always been very skeptical about crypto ever since I learned about it. Bitcoin and its successors have always sounded like scams and schemes—great if you invested early on but far from the libertarian utopian technology some evangelists seemed to think it could be. As we’ve passed the decade mark and more and more people try to bend blockchain technology to their particular business models, my skepticism and cynicism have increased proportionally.
Yet Greenberg carefully showcases the diversity of viewpoints within the crypto community. Gronager and Meiklejohn have quite different ideas about how and why blockchain analysis should be done, for example—and Greenberg allows them both the space to explain their beliefs. As a result, I started to understand why there are still some “true believers” within the crypto community—people who don’t see cryptocurrency necessarily as an anarchic panacea for state surveillance and control but rather view it as a logical extension of existing monetary tools. While I still wouldn’t go so far as to agree with that idea, I’m more sympathetic to it than the more extreme viewpoints I’ve seen in the past. Greenberg’s diligence in seeking out contradictory opinions helped me confront my own biases and arrive at a more nuanced view of this topic.
You don’t need to understand the math behind Bitcoin to understand the effect it has had on our economy and crime. For better or worse, Bitcoin might not be poised to render fiat currency obsolete, but it’s here to stay in one form or another—and if you’re like me, you might want to see whether your pension fund invested in a cryptocurrency exchange…. Tracers in the Dark is top-notch writing in service of telling a story that anyone interested in crime, computers, mathematics, etc., would do well to hear.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
December 13, 2022
A fascinating book on the dark web and the "privacy" of cryptocurrencies
One of the best books of 2022. A set of amazing stories written by Andy Greenberg about the biggest dark web operations, narrated from an investigator/journalist perspective. It remembered me the Cliff Stoll's book The Cuckoo's egg.
A great resource to understand the game between the darkops, law enforcement and private companies
One of the best books of 2022. A set of amazing stories written by Andy Greenberg about the biggest dark web operations, narrated from an investigator/journalist perspective. It remembered me the Cliff Stoll's book The Cuckoo's egg.
A great resource to understand the game between the darkops, law enforcement and private companies
June 25, 2024
Wow imagine if the feds put the same effort into investigating financial fraud and child exploitation that they do into investigating consenting adults buying and selling recreational drugs for their own use?
Pre:
just listened to Greenberg's interview w Jack Rhysider on Darknet Diaries, def need to pick this book up when i get the chance
Pre:
just listened to Greenberg's interview w Jack Rhysider on Darknet Diaries, def need to pick this book up when i get the chance
December 27, 2023
This is the best cybercrime book I have read in the last seven years. I would put it in the same cybercrime Hall of Fame bucket as 2012's "We Are Anonymous" and "Kingpin," 2014's "Spam Nation," and 2016's "Future Crimes." The author, Andy Greenberg, is a longtime tech and security writer and has been working for Wired magazine since 2014. He's also an author of three books, one a New York Times bestseller in 2012 called "This Machine Kills Secrets" about WikiLeaks, a second in 2019, a cybersecurity canon hall of fame book called "Sandworm," about the Russian cyberattacks against Ukraine from 2014 to 2017, and now, this book.
According to Greenberg, "The book is about the advents of cryptocurrency tracing as a law enforcement investigative technique." What that means is that if you had any notion that cryptocurrency transactions in general, and Bitcoin transactions in particular, were anonymous, Greenberg completely shatters that idea. He documents the research of Sarah Meiklejohn (a university researcher), Tigran Gambaryan (an IRS Special Agent), Chris Janczewski (an IRS Special Agent) and Michael Gronecker (The CEO of Chainalysis) and then tells the stories of how law enforcement used those research techniques to investigate some of the most successful cyber crime operations in recent years.
- Silk Road: An criminal marketplace that at its peak was "moving $15 million in narcotics annually.
- The criminals behind the Colonial Pipeline attacks.
- Mt. Gox (The Bitcoin Exchange): One of the biggest players, now in bankruptcy because criminals stole $350 Million in bitcoin.
- BTC-e: "Mysterious bitcoin-trading platform that seemed to exist nowhere and be run by no one."
- Alpha Bay: Another criminal marketplace where at its peak, had over 200,000 users and over 400,000 listings for drugs, weapons, stolen data, and other illegal goods.
- Welcome to Video: Cryptocurrency funded Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM) market.
- Hansa: Another criminal marketplace
As Greenberg tells the stories, he also sheds some light on just how Bitcoin actually works (Change addresses, multiple inputs, Bitcoin Nodes, Bitcoin tumblers, Wallet Fees), the techniques researchers use to find the criminals behind illicit Bitcoin transactions (Peeling Chains, Clustering) and some early days trivia about the creator of Bitcoin: Satoshi Nakamoto. He also talks about new cryptocurrency systems (Privacy Coins) where the creators specifically designed the system to thwart block chain analysis like Monero and ZCash.
The cryptocurrency world is a fascinating place occupied by utopian minded libertines concerned with privacy and trying to rid the world of "evil" financial institution middle men but also amoral criminals who try to hide within those systems for profit regardless of the victims they leave behind. Greenberg sheds a giant spotlight on that world and the law enforcement agencies (IRS, DEA, FBI, DOJ, Canada's RCMP, and Europol) and commercial firms (Chainalysis) investigating it.
It is a fantastic read.
References
Goodman, M., 2016. Future Crimes: Inside the Digital Underground and the Battle for Our Connected World [Cybersecurity Canon Hall of Fame Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2....
Greenberg, A., 2013. This Machine Kills Secrets: Julian Assange, the Cypherpunks, and Their Fight to Empower Whistleblowers [Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1....
Greenberg, A., 2020. Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers [Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4....
Howard, R., 2013. We Are Anonymous [Book Review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/we-are-anonymous .
Howard, R., 2014. Kingpin: How a Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground [Book Review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/kingpin-how-hack....
Howard, R., 2014. SPAM Nation [Book review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/spam-nation.
Howard, R., 2023. Andy Greenberg Interview: Tracers in the Dark. [Interview]. The CyberWire. URL https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/cso....
Krebs, B., 2014. Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime-from Global Epidemic to Your Front Door [Cybersecurity Canon Hall of Fame Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1....
Mac, R., 2013. Meet The Silk Road Employee That The Dread Pirate Roberts Allegedly Tried To Murder [News]. Forbes. URL https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/....
Meiklejohn, S., Pomarole, M., Jordan, G., Levchenko, K., McCoy, D., Voelker, G.M., Savage, S., 2016. A fistful of Bitcoins: Characterizing Payments Among Men with No Names [Journal Article]. Communications of the ACM. URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2896384.
Nakamoto , S., 2008. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System [Historic and Important Paper]. Bitcoin. URL https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
Olson, P., 2012. We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency [Cybersecurity Canon Hall of Fame Book ]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1....
Oltsik, J., 2015. Future Crimes: Everyone Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It [Book Review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/future-crimes-ev....
Poulsen, K., 2012. Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground [Cybersecurity Canon Hall of Fame Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9....
Staff, 2016. American Greed: “Silk Road: Digital Drug Dealers” Gallery [News]. CNBC. URL https://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/23/ameri....
According to Greenberg, "The book is about the advents of cryptocurrency tracing as a law enforcement investigative technique." What that means is that if you had any notion that cryptocurrency transactions in general, and Bitcoin transactions in particular, were anonymous, Greenberg completely shatters that idea. He documents the research of Sarah Meiklejohn (a university researcher), Tigran Gambaryan (an IRS Special Agent), Chris Janczewski (an IRS Special Agent) and Michael Gronecker (The CEO of Chainalysis) and then tells the stories of how law enforcement used those research techniques to investigate some of the most successful cyber crime operations in recent years.
- Silk Road: An criminal marketplace that at its peak was "moving $15 million in narcotics annually.
- The criminals behind the Colonial Pipeline attacks.
- Mt. Gox (The Bitcoin Exchange): One of the biggest players, now in bankruptcy because criminals stole $350 Million in bitcoin.
- BTC-e: "Mysterious bitcoin-trading platform that seemed to exist nowhere and be run by no one."
- Alpha Bay: Another criminal marketplace where at its peak, had over 200,000 users and over 400,000 listings for drugs, weapons, stolen data, and other illegal goods.
- Welcome to Video: Cryptocurrency funded Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM) market.
- Hansa: Another criminal marketplace
As Greenberg tells the stories, he also sheds some light on just how Bitcoin actually works (Change addresses, multiple inputs, Bitcoin Nodes, Bitcoin tumblers, Wallet Fees), the techniques researchers use to find the criminals behind illicit Bitcoin transactions (Peeling Chains, Clustering) and some early days trivia about the creator of Bitcoin: Satoshi Nakamoto. He also talks about new cryptocurrency systems (Privacy Coins) where the creators specifically designed the system to thwart block chain analysis like Monero and ZCash.
The cryptocurrency world is a fascinating place occupied by utopian minded libertines concerned with privacy and trying to rid the world of "evil" financial institution middle men but also amoral criminals who try to hide within those systems for profit regardless of the victims they leave behind. Greenberg sheds a giant spotlight on that world and the law enforcement agencies (IRS, DEA, FBI, DOJ, Canada's RCMP, and Europol) and commercial firms (Chainalysis) investigating it.
It is a fantastic read.
References
Goodman, M., 2016. Future Crimes: Inside the Digital Underground and the Battle for Our Connected World [Cybersecurity Canon Hall of Fame Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2....
Greenberg, A., 2013. This Machine Kills Secrets: Julian Assange, the Cypherpunks, and Their Fight to Empower Whistleblowers [Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1....
Greenberg, A., 2020. Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers [Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4....
Howard, R., 2013. We Are Anonymous [Book Review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/we-are-anonymous .
Howard, R., 2014. Kingpin: How a Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground [Book Review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/kingpin-how-hack....
Howard, R., 2014. SPAM Nation [Book review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/spam-nation.
Howard, R., 2023. Andy Greenberg Interview: Tracers in the Dark. [Interview]. The CyberWire. URL https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/cso....
Krebs, B., 2014. Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime-from Global Epidemic to Your Front Door [Cybersecurity Canon Hall of Fame Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1....
Mac, R., 2013. Meet The Silk Road Employee That The Dread Pirate Roberts Allegedly Tried To Murder [News]. Forbes. URL https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/....
Meiklejohn, S., Pomarole, M., Jordan, G., Levchenko, K., McCoy, D., Voelker, G.M., Savage, S., 2016. A fistful of Bitcoins: Characterizing Payments Among Men with No Names [Journal Article]. Communications of the ACM. URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2896384.
Nakamoto , S., 2008. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System [Historic and Important Paper]. Bitcoin. URL https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
Olson, P., 2012. We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency [Cybersecurity Canon Hall of Fame Book ]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1....
Oltsik, J., 2015. Future Crimes: Everyone Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It [Book Review]. Cybersecurity Canon Project. URL https://icdt.osu.edu/future-crimes-ev....
Poulsen, K., 2012. Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground [Cybersecurity Canon Hall of Fame Book]. Goodreads. URL https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9....
Staff, 2016. American Greed: “Silk Road: Digital Drug Dealers” Gallery [News]. CNBC. URL https://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/23/ameri....
Read
February 6, 2024Very interesting, especially in part 1 about the initial tracing work. Part 4 has parts which related to the abuse of children which are quite upsetting, as the author warns in his author's note up front.
August 23, 2023
it was ok but felt like advertisement for a certain company
May 19, 2024
19 May 2024 update: Officials of the Nigerian government asked Tigran Gambaryan, according to multiple sources, to pay $150 million in cryptocurrency to make his case "go away". He remains in prison in Nigeria. See 7 May 2024 New York Times article here.
Original review: Once I started writing this review, I went deep into the weeds on some details, but I want to say up here at the beginning that this book is a good, interesting read and as clear to the non-initiated as the subject allows. It removes some of the mystery surrounding the word “blockchain”. Furthermore, as the facts below will show, personalities in this 2022 book are still making news today.
I started this (borrowed-from-library) book after reading a chapter from it that appeared as a long-form journalism piece on the website of Wired magazine, see here. This piece is Chapter 7 (of 50) of the book Tracers in the Dark. The woman who features in this chapters turns out to be a minor (but vital) character in the larger narrative, but the piece itself is compelling on its own, even if you are not planning to inform yourself more thoroughly about how a bunch of arrogant and ignorant criminal yutzes convinced themselves that bitcoins were untraceable, and then found out that they were wrong.
Wired magazine also published two further bits online: the book's prologue here and a chapter about the origins of the takedown of online drug market Alphabay here.
One day, I paused reading this book to look through the New York Times website. I came across the name “Tigran Gambaryan” in this article. I said to myself, hey, isn't that the name of one of the US law enforcement officials who figures prominently in Tracers in the Dark? Yes, it is!
Gambaryan (as well as many of his colleagues featured in this book) decided very reasonably to leave public law enforcement and seek a higher salary in the private sector. He quit the Internal Revenue Service and became a “compliance officer” of Binance (“the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume”, per its website). In this role, he was recently arrested for money laundering in Nigeria and as of this writing currently sits in a very unpleasant-sounding Nigeria prison.
Yes, the public sector pays better, but US IRS agents are not, to my knowledge, often imprisoned in Nigeria. If they were, the US Embassy would raise something of a ruckus, at least more of a ruckus than they seem to be raising on Gambaryan's behalf.
I went down the internet rabbit hole of information learning more about this. (Try it yourself: google “Tigran Gambaryan.”) Poor Gambaryan's situation was not improved when a fellow Binance executive, with whom he was arrested, escaped to Kenya after being allowed out of prison to go to a mosque. (The escapee was soon recaptured.) The internet's cryptocurrency fan club seems united at the moment in the plausible opinion that Gambaryan has basically been taken hostage by the Nigerian government, because, as one article says (in a sentiment attributed to Gambaryan's lawyer), “he does not have decision-making authority in the company’s business operations.”
I found that the resulting narrative contained some questions I would like to have had filled. Is this some sort of shakedown? Who is shaking down whom? Why did Gambaryan return to Nigeria when he had apparently been threatened with arrest on a previous visit?
Concerning this last question, I'd like to refer to an episode in the book. There are spoilers upcoming.
Ironically, as Gambaryan sits in prison in Nigeria, Russian national Alexander Vinnik, whom Gambaryan helped bring to justice (as recounted in this book), pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Tigran Gambaryan is mentioned by name in the US Justice Department press release as a major contributor to the investigation.
There's a LOT of interesting stuff in this book that does NOT concern Tigran Gambaryan and also a lot of well-explained stuff about internet privacy and about how internet crime works or fails to work. This is probably not something that everybody needs to know on a day-to-day basis, but it never hurts to inform yourself, especially as a certain type of charlatan continues to be determined to use the word “blockchain” as a mesmerizing incantation to bamboozle the easily impressed.
Reviewed in the New York Times on 16 November 2022, see here.
Original review: Once I started writing this review, I went deep into the weeds on some details, but I want to say up here at the beginning that this book is a good, interesting read and as clear to the non-initiated as the subject allows. It removes some of the mystery surrounding the word “blockchain”. Furthermore, as the facts below will show, personalities in this 2022 book are still making news today.
I started this (borrowed-from-library) book after reading a chapter from it that appeared as a long-form journalism piece on the website of Wired magazine, see here. This piece is Chapter 7 (of 50) of the book Tracers in the Dark. The woman who features in this chapters turns out to be a minor (but vital) character in the larger narrative, but the piece itself is compelling on its own, even if you are not planning to inform yourself more thoroughly about how a bunch of arrogant and ignorant criminal yutzes convinced themselves that bitcoins were untraceable, and then found out that they were wrong.
Wired magazine also published two further bits online: the book's prologue here and a chapter about the origins of the takedown of online drug market Alphabay here.
One day, I paused reading this book to look through the New York Times website. I came across the name “Tigran Gambaryan” in this article. I said to myself, hey, isn't that the name of one of the US law enforcement officials who figures prominently in Tracers in the Dark? Yes, it is!
Gambaryan (as well as many of his colleagues featured in this book) decided very reasonably to leave public law enforcement and seek a higher salary in the private sector. He quit the Internal Revenue Service and became a “compliance officer” of Binance (“the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume”, per its website). In this role, he was recently arrested for money laundering in Nigeria and as of this writing currently sits in a very unpleasant-sounding Nigeria prison.
Yes, the public sector pays better, but US IRS agents are not, to my knowledge, often imprisoned in Nigeria. If they were, the US Embassy would raise something of a ruckus, at least more of a ruckus than they seem to be raising on Gambaryan's behalf.
I went down the internet rabbit hole of information learning more about this. (Try it yourself: google “Tigran Gambaryan.”) Poor Gambaryan's situation was not improved when a fellow Binance executive, with whom he was arrested, escaped to Kenya after being allowed out of prison to go to a mosque. (The escapee was soon recaptured.) The internet's cryptocurrency fan club seems united at the moment in the plausible opinion that Gambaryan has basically been taken hostage by the Nigerian government, because, as one article says (in a sentiment attributed to Gambaryan's lawyer), “he does not have decision-making authority in the company’s business operations.”
I found that the resulting narrative contained some questions I would like to have had filled. Is this some sort of shakedown? Who is shaking down whom? Why did Gambaryan return to Nigeria when he had apparently been threatened with arrest on a previous visit?
Concerning this last question, I'd like to refer to an episode in the book. There are spoilers upcoming.
Ironically, as Gambaryan sits in prison in Nigeria, Russian national Alexander Vinnik, whom Gambaryan helped bring to justice (as recounted in this book), pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Tigran Gambaryan is mentioned by name in the US Justice Department press release as a major contributor to the investigation.
There's a LOT of interesting stuff in this book that does NOT concern Tigran Gambaryan and also a lot of well-explained stuff about internet privacy and about how internet crime works or fails to work. This is probably not something that everybody needs to know on a day-to-day basis, but it never hurts to inform yourself, especially as a certain type of charlatan continues to be determined to use the word “blockchain” as a mesmerizing incantation to bamboozle the easily impressed.
Reviewed in the New York Times on 16 November 2022, see here.
February 19, 2024
I'm hard to please with nonfiction and often don't end up reading much of it because of that. But I enjoyed this a lot, reminded me of other books that manage to be true crime without feeling exploitative and taught me a lot, like Bad Blood or Empire of Pain.
True crime is such a messy genre, which is why I usually avoid it. But the types of crimes here are mostly financial, so less opportunity for exploiting grieving victims. Also less of an issue with copaganda, even though law enforcement plays such a central role, as these are not your usual cops and they actual do the kind of meticulous, detailed investigations that rarely happen in real life rather than pretending they do like so much copaganda does. Having an IRS Agent as your main cop helps, apparently. So does the kind of over the top bad guys that you are happy to see go down.
I have been aware of crypto for a long time but there was always such a whiff of tech bro and fraud that I avoided learning too much. Greenberg explains things well, I never felt really out of my depth, even when it gets complex. This is a limited look at things, so you will not hear larger critiques of crypto or NFTs or its impact on the environment.
Note that one section of this book deals with the attempts to shut down a site focused on child sexual abuse. Nothing is described in detail but simply hearing the volume of material involved, and basic info without supporting details, it's still a lot. May be worth a pass if this is a difficult topic for you.
I did the audio, was solid.
True crime is such a messy genre, which is why I usually avoid it. But the types of crimes here are mostly financial, so less opportunity for exploiting grieving victims. Also less of an issue with copaganda, even though law enforcement plays such a central role, as these are not your usual cops and they actual do the kind of meticulous, detailed investigations that rarely happen in real life rather than pretending they do like so much copaganda does. Having an IRS Agent as your main cop helps, apparently. So does the kind of over the top bad guys that you are happy to see go down.
I have been aware of crypto for a long time but there was always such a whiff of tech bro and fraud that I avoided learning too much. Greenberg explains things well, I never felt really out of my depth, even when it gets complex. This is a limited look at things, so you will not hear larger critiques of crypto or NFTs or its impact on the environment.
Note that one section of this book deals with the attempts to shut down a site focused on child sexual abuse. Nothing is described in detail but simply hearing the volume of material involved, and basic info without supporting details, it's still a lot. May be worth a pass if this is a difficult topic for you.
I did the audio, was solid.
February 23, 2024
My kind of book.
December 2, 2022
Riveting read!
January 1, 2023
Greenberg traces cryptocurrencies down the rabbit holes of darkweb markets. Despite all the claims of anonymity and decentralization, law enforcement with help of some academics and entrepreneurs in chain analysis locates and takes down the kingpins of silk road and alphabay, and even more darker corners of CSAM. Along the way corruption of a DEA and Secret Service agent is also captured kudos to IRS agents who kept following the money. If Greenberg waited a bit longer FTX would probably be another chapter or two as it is not much different from Mt Gox covered in the book. Overall it is a riveting read with a bit more optimistic discussion towards the end with Meiklejohn... Another must read from Greenberg.
February 13, 2023
Despite being a traditional commercial banker, cryptocurrency is not really in my 'wheelhouse'. I haven't quite grasped the whole thing. Notwithstanding, I learned of this book in a booklist site and thought it sounded like a great read.
And what a cracking book it is! I seem to like the style of magazine/feature style writers when they turn to wrting a book and this is no exception. Andy Greenberg, who I now know is one of the guns of the whole crypto industry (from a reporter perspective), has brilliantly woven his cast of central characters into true-crime style story telling. Much of it seems too crazy to be real.
I cannot recommend this highly enough and despite his previous books bgeing even further from my wheelhouse, I may well check them out.
And what a cracking book it is! I seem to like the style of magazine/feature style writers when they turn to wrting a book and this is no exception. Andy Greenberg, who I now know is one of the guns of the whole crypto industry (from a reporter perspective), has brilliantly woven his cast of central characters into true-crime style story telling. Much of it seems too crazy to be real.
I cannot recommend this highly enough and despite his previous books bgeing even further from my wheelhouse, I may well check them out.
July 25, 2023
Some people did some illegal things and some of them were arrested using blockchain analysis. Bitcoin isn’t anonymous but the cat-and-mouse game continues as technology evolves. The end.
Read the book to learn a thousand details about it.
Read the book to learn a thousand details about it.
Read
June 28, 2024Finished this in its entirety on a 6-hour plane ride! It was nice to have completed a nonfiction book fairly close to its release so that I can be assured I have a pretty comprehensive current understanding of the situation the book describes.
I've listened to a couple dark web and crypto-adjacent podcasts like The Missing Cryptoqueen and Hunting Warhead (absolutely amazing but, like one section of this book, deals with child sexual abuse and is thus quite difficult to get through), and I was hoping to find more of those stories represented here. I was happy with Greenberg's thoroughness and objectivity. He definitely knows his stuff, and the roughly chronological format of the narrative worked really well to highlight how different groups, though mostly law enforcement, have handled crime on the dark web over time from roughly the early 2010s to the present.
I appreciated the critical debate about the nature of whether analysis of the blockchain, especially via big companies utilizing tech, was ethical or unethical; multiple perspectives are included here without anything feeling shoehorned in.
The only tonal element that I had trouble with was an occasional grimace at the breezy assumptions that we are all beginning from the assumption that police are the good guys. This was largely an understandable narrative choice because we were viewing events through the eyes of the people being interviewed, but I thought it was a little dubious, for example, in the Welcome to Video section on child abuse material to have positioned it as shocking news that at least 2 of the major offenders they identified were in law enforcement. Many statistics are available on exactly how not shocking this is.
While I have no plans to delve further into cryptocurrency, this was a really nice, comprehensive, and accessible primer for lay people that stayed interesting and feels relevant.
I've listened to a couple dark web and crypto-adjacent podcasts like The Missing Cryptoqueen and Hunting Warhead (absolutely amazing but, like one section of this book, deals with child sexual abuse and is thus quite difficult to get through), and I was hoping to find more of those stories represented here. I was happy with Greenberg's thoroughness and objectivity. He definitely knows his stuff, and the roughly chronological format of the narrative worked really well to highlight how different groups, though mostly law enforcement, have handled crime on the dark web over time from roughly the early 2010s to the present.
I appreciated the critical debate about the nature of whether analysis of the blockchain, especially via big companies utilizing tech, was ethical or unethical; multiple perspectives are included here without anything feeling shoehorned in.
The only tonal element that I had trouble with was an occasional grimace at the breezy assumptions that we are all beginning from the assumption that police are the good guys. This was largely an understandable narrative choice because we were viewing events through the eyes of the people being interviewed, but I thought it was a little dubious, for example, in the Welcome to Video section on child abuse material to have positioned it as shocking news that at least 2 of the major offenders they identified were in law enforcement. Many statistics are available on exactly how not shocking this is.
While I have no plans to delve further into cryptocurrency, this was a really nice, comprehensive, and accessible primer for lay people that stayed interesting and feels relevant.
June 23, 2024
Deze kon ik nauwelijks wegleggen. Spannend geschreven boek waarin de achtergronden en opsporing in een aantal grote darkweb zaken (o.a. rond Silk Road en AlphaBay) worden beschreven. Als Nederlander is het in het bijzonder leuk om de sleutelrol van Team High Tech Crime terug te zien bij de internationale operatie om AlphaBay en Hansa op te rollen. Ondanks dat het boek in eerste oogopslag misschien wat technisch klinkt, blijf het over het algemeen goed leesbaar. Lezers hoeven geen technische kennis te hebben van cryptocurrency of het darkweb. Een absolute aanrader voor iedereen die geïnteresseerd is in de zaken zelf, in de opsporingsmethoden of in het kijkje achter de schermen bij opsporingsinstanties. Hopelijk schrijft Greenberg over vijf jaar ook nog eens dat vervolg.
February 16, 2023
Very entertaining book on criminals who used Bitcoin to launder money and hide their transactions, only to find out that the public nature of the blockchain technology allowed prosecutors and detectives the ability to track them down by "following the money". Most of the book is focused on a few big busts and for these the book reads like a fiction thriller. The rest is on smaller busts, and some philosophy about cryptocurrency and whether or not it will fulfill its adherents' dream of complete privacy from state oppression. Sadly, there is nothing in this book to help settle my discussion with Travis as to whether there is any good in cryptocurrency beyond allowing Russian and North Korean criminals to prey on the rest of the world.
December 24, 2023
Hands down the best book I've read this year. You don't need to know a lot about crypto or the darknet to go in, but I guarantee you'll be conversant by the time you put it away. Brilliantly researched and pieced together, it reads like a novel—something I felt too with David Simon's "Homicide". Who knew forensic accounting could be exhilarating?
February 12, 2024
This book needs to absolutely be made into a Netflix series.
Key takeaways:
- Bitcoin is most definitely not anonymous nor untraceable
- the IRS is more badass than you think
- the protection of privacy and the proliferation of criminal elements are two sides of the same coin
- evil people exist in plain sight and inhabit all levels of society
- bad guys can’t help themselves when it comes to their egos
- I am very glad good guys, like the ones in the book, exist.
Key takeaways:
- Bitcoin is most definitely not anonymous nor untraceable
- the IRS is more badass than you think
- the protection of privacy and the proliferation of criminal elements are two sides of the same coin
- evil people exist in plain sight and inhabit all levels of society
- bad guys can’t help themselves when it comes to their egos
- I am very glad good guys, like the ones in the book, exist.
February 24, 2024
It wasn't as technical as I thought it might be, but was probably for the best. A lot more of it felt like an over the top Hollywood movie than I was expecting. That being said I really enjoyed it and I think there are many interesting things that can be debated in terms of privacy and regulations.
December 27, 2023
Interesting read, although not my usual. I knew very little about Bitcoin before and just thought it was for tech nerds but this made me understand why people may invest. It was heavy at times but the investigation into the dark web was very interesting.
March 12, 2023
The two men had been seduced by the same siren song: the false promise of untraceable money.
An absolutely riveting book about the world of crime and cryptocurrency. Tracers in the Dark reads like a thriller of four parts (silk road, btc-e, alpha bay, welcome to video). The fourth part specifically packed the heaviest emotional punch for me.
I also feel that I understand cryptocurrencies and the trade-offs they entail a bit better after reading this. There are real life-changing trade-offs when considering the popular bitcoin and the privacy-protecting Zcash.
An absolutely riveting book about the world of crime and cryptocurrency. Tracers in the Dark reads like a thriller of four parts (silk road, btc-e, alpha bay, welcome to video). The fourth part specifically packed the heaviest emotional punch for me.
I also feel that I understand cryptocurrencies and the trade-offs they entail a bit better after reading this. There are real life-changing trade-offs when considering the popular bitcoin and the privacy-protecting Zcash.
July 4, 2023
I’m mind blown after reading this book. Dark net is a sketchy place.
May 28, 2024
Definitely reads like a thriller and is hard to put down. Gives an in depth look at criminal dark web investigations and and makes the complicated side of cryptocurrency interesting and easy to understand. Also gives a wider overview of how the storyline ties into other issues like mass surveillance, personal privacy, and politics.
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