Download American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road AudioBook Free
The incredible true account of the person who built a billion-dollar online medicine empire from his bedroom - and almost received away with it In 2011, a 26-year-old libertarian programmer called Ross Ulbricht launched the best free market: the Silk Highway, a clandestine website hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could operate anything - drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons - free from the government's watchful eyeball. It wasn't long before the media received wind flow of the new website where anyone - not simply young adults and weed retailers but terrorists and black head wear hackers - could trade contraband detection-free. Spurred by a public outcry, the government launched an epic two-year manhunt for the site's elusive proprietor, with no leads, no witnesses, and no clear jurisdiction. All of the investigators realized was that whoever was operating the site called himself the Dread Pirate Roberts. The Silk Highway quickly ballooned into a $1.2 billion venture, and Ross embraced his new role as kingpin. He enlisted a faithful team of allies in high and low places, all as addicted to the risk and buzz of operating an illegal market as their customers were to the heroin they sold. Through his network he received wind of the mark on his rear and took extreme steps to safeguard himself - including placing your order a hit on the former employee. As Ross made plans to disappear forever, the feds raced against the clock to catch a guy they weren't sure even existed, looking for a needle in the haystack of the global Internet. Attracting on exclusive usage of key players and two billion digital words and images Ross left out, Vanity Fair correspondent and New York Times best-selling writer Nick Bilton offers an account filled up with twists and turns, blessed breaks, and incredible close cell phone calls. It's a tale of the young man next door's ambition eliminated legal, spurred on by the clash between the new world of libertarian-leaning, anonymous, decentralized web advocates and the old world of authorities control, order, and the rule of law. Filled up with unforgettable characters and capped by an amazing climax, American Kingpin might be dismissed as too outrageous for fiction. But it's all too real.
