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.
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?
“Andy Greenberg has turned a prescient lens on the investigators, technology, and budding industry that may just be the most powerful weapon we wield in the fight against cybercriminals and illicit nation states who mistakenly believed that the blockchain and cryptocurrency offered them cover. Greenberg tells the tale of this new weapon with his usual eye for technical accuracy and gift for storytelling. This is how the good guys win.” —Nicole Perlroth, author of This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends
“A riveting non-fiction thriller from an exceptional reporter and storyteller. Tracers in the Dark shines a light on how cryptocurrency has been used to hide human rights abuses and trafficking by global crime syndicates—and how a team of crypto tracers learned to expose those schemes by finding a new way to follow the money.” —Alex Gibney, Academy Award-winning director of Going Clear and Zero Days
“A gripping, stranger-than-fiction tale of how a small team of geeks and federal agents cracked what was once thought to be untraceable cryptocurrency. Page after page, Tracers in the Dark proves beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no better reporter covering the wild west of the internet than Andy Greenberg.” —Garrett M. Graff, author of The Only Plane in the Sky and Watergate
“A master-class in the tactics and countertactics of financial cyberwarfare, laid out in a tense, exciting technothriller.” —Cory Doctorow, author of Attack Surface and Red Team Blues
“Fascinating and so enthralling. . . . [A] highly recommended book.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“Greenberg examines in fascinating detail how criminals have employed technology for their nefarious ends. . . . 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.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Spellbinding. . . . Written with great enthusiasm and with an ear for the dramatic turn of phrase...this is the kind of book that yanks the reader’s eyes wide open. . . . Lively, highly relevant, and more than a little scary.” —Booklist
“A sinuous, eminently readable story of the darker corners of cyberspace. . . . 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.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
