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Greenberg follows up 2019’s Sandworm, which focused on Russian computer hackers, with this spellbinding story of the efforts of law-enforcement agencies around the world to bring down the criminal elements who use cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, for example) to fund their illegal activities. Written with great enthusiasm and with an ear for the dramatic turn of phrase—readers familiar with the work of Ben Mezrich will note a similarity of approach—this is the kind of book that yanks the reader’s eyes wide open. Could this stuff called cryptocurrency, which you can’t touch or see or accumulate in any physical sense, really be the foundation of criminal empires around the world? Well, yes. Greenberg, a senior writer with Wired magazine, explains how and why such a thing is possible, and how incredibly difficult it is to find the people who operate in the dark recesses of the internet. He also introduces us to some of the good and bad guys (and a couple of people who straddle that thin line). Lively, highly relevant, and more than a little scary.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A sinuous, eminently readable story of the darker corners of cyberspace. Who would have thought an IRS agent could become a legal superhero? That’s just the case with a criminal investigator named Tigran Gambaryan, who had been assigned to “busting gangs in Oakland who had graduated from dealing drugs to filing fraudulent tax returns with stolen identities,” a switch that had the benefit of bringing in more money while carrying less jail time. Fearing that he’d spend his career chasing down small fry, Gambaryan turned his attention to cybercrimes, which in turn led him to Bitcoin. Then at Forbes and now at Wired, technology journalist Greenberg was exploring cryptocurrency himself and trying to land an interview with the legendary Silk Road mastermind known as the Dread Pirate Roberts, who was “making millions of dollars in highly illegal narcotics sales…while evading every global law enforcement agency.” DPR assumed that cryptocurrency was an impregnable fortress that couldn’t be “de-anonymized.” Not so, and he was finally taken down after e-chatting for months with a supposed online moderator who was in reality a Homeland Security agent. With sometimes competitive agencies working together—even the IRS, which one judge called “the redheaded stepchild of law enforcement”—and spreading the net to include both criminals and police agencies abroad, the chase quickened after DPR fell. Greenberg tells the stories of demolishing crime empires like AlphaBay and Hansa and their bosses with verve that’s refreshing for a book full of computers, code-breaking, and electronic cat-and-mouse games, including one memorable moment in which the object of an international police hunt “had, entirely by chance, arrived at a meeting at the exact hotel where they were staying and sat down at the table next to them.” Greenberg’s book is reminiscent in all the best ways of Clifford Stoll’s Cuckoo’s Egg, smoothly blending crime writing with matters of the deepest techno-geekery. An absorbing work of true crime—and, as the bad guys will tell you, true punishment. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Choice
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

This is a tale of the dark web and cryptocurrency. It is a detective story populated by criminals and federal agents from the Treasury Department’s Secret Service, the FBI, and the IRS, written by Greenberg, a fearless, award-winning senior writer for Wired with a sharp eye for detail and a relentless pursuit of the truth. Among the truths Greenberg reveals is the fallibility of both the dark web and the block chain technology on which cryptocurrency is based. Block chain transactions must be transmitted from a determinate location to other, often local, servers. These nodes in the block chain network must confirm the transaction for it to be recognized and posted in the digital block chain. Thus, transactions in block chain are traceable, as demonstrated by the law enforcement actions described in the book. The perception by criminals and many in law enforcement to the contrary creates opportunities for arrests and prosecutions, even of law enforcement officers. As Greenberg illustrates, the knowledge of block chain’s vulnerability is spreading, and law enforcement forces in many countries are cooperating in investigations leading to prosecutions. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Satyananda J. Gabriel, Mount Holyoke College

Publishers Weekly
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In this sobering account, cybersecurity reporter Greenberg (Sandworm) delves into the efforts of law enforcement agencies and cybersleuths to trace criminal activity involving cryptocurrency, starting with the takedown in 2013 of Silk Road, “the sprawling, Bitcoin-based, billion-dollar online black market for dark web narcotics sales, created by a pseudonymous figure known as the Dread Pirate Roberts.” It took the FBI, IRS, and DHS two-and-a-half years of dogged research to identify the site’s founder as Ross Ulbricht, a 29-year-old Texan with no criminal record, and arrest him in a San Francisco library. Other operations have targeted child pornography websites and ransomware attacks. Greenberg examines in fascinating detail how criminals have employed technology for their nefarious ends, along the way providing a history of Bitcoin and a look at a possible future technology that would make “truly untraceable and anonymous finances possible.” He brings to vivid life the assorted players, including the agents who cracked the crimes, those in law enforcement who succumbed to the allure of fast money on the dark web, and the private citizens who ushered in the golden age of cryptocurrency tracing. This is a must-have for the true crime shelf. Agent: Eric Lupfer, Fletcher & Co. (Nov.)

Library Journal
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Many readers do not understand how cryptocurrency works nor know that federal agents are attempting to take down a criminal empire of digital black markets. Greenberg (Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers) methodically and meticulously explains the way cryptocurrency functions. He documents how Bitcoin has been used to conduct illegal activities and the agencies that follow it. The author debunks the myth that cryptocurrency is untraceable through a discussion of cases that agents have cracked by going after the heads of a dark website, which included the work of dirty agents trying to stay one step ahead of being caught. Since this illegal activity has developed only in the past decade, federal government agencies have a learning curve to fight it. These stories are fascinating and so enthralling, it is hard to distinguish real people from the aliases used to protect identities and privacies. Greenberg shows that tracking cryptocurrency is at once a cat-and-mouse game and a whack-a-mole situation. VERDICT This highly recommended book has been picked up by Jigsaw Productions to develop into a scripted screen adaptation, a documentary, and a podcast. There are few books on the crypto underworld, making this a must for all libraries.—Michael Sawyer