American Kingpin
Catching the Billion-Dollar Baron of the Dark Web
(Author) Nick BiltonThe rise and fall of Ross Ulbricht, aka the Dread Pirate Roberts, the founder of the online black market Silk Road. In 2011, a young programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched an illicit website hidden deep on the Dark Web. The Silk Road was the ultimate free market where anyone could trade anything using Bitcoins - steroids, heroin, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons - free of the government's watchful eye. The Silk Road quickly ballooned into a $1.2 billion enterprise and Ross embraced his new role as kingpin, including ordering a hit on a former employee. As Ross made plans to disappear forever, the Feds raced against the clock to catch a man they weren't sure even existed, searching for a needle in the haystack of the global internet"--Publisher's description.