From the award-winning author of Sandworm comes the propulsive story
of a new breed of investigators who have cracked the Bitcoin blockchain,
exposing once-anonymous realms of money, drugs, and violence. "I love
the book... It reads like a thriller... These stories are amazing."
(Michael Lewis)
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, 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
hardboiled 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 takedown 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?
