American Kingpin
The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. The unbelievable true story of the man who built a billion-dollar online drug empire from his bedroom—and almost got away with it
In 2011, a twenty-six-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine Web site hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything—drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons—free of the government’s watchful eye.
It wasn’t long before the media got wind of the new Web site where anyone—not just teenagers and weed dealers but terrorists and black hat hackers—could buy and sell contraband detection-free. Spurred by a public outcry, the federal government launched an epic two-year manhunt for the…
Nick Bilton is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, where he writes about technology, business, and culture. He is also a contributor at CNBC, and was a columnist for The New York Times for almost a decade. Bilton lives in Los Angeles with his wife, son, and dog, Pixel. To learn more, visit nickbilton.com.
American Kingpin
Nick Bilton
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Nick Bilton