American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road

On a frigid February 2013 morning in Manhattan, IRS Criminal Investigation agent Gary Alford followed his exact routine: He checked his email, read every text three times, and completed reports from former investigations. He wore a crisp suit and had a New York accent, though he grew up in the low-income Marlboro Houses in Gravesend. He was born during a blackout in 1977, a time when a serial killer named Son of Sam was plaguing New York. A few years later, his family moved from Gravesend to Canarsie as vials of crack cocaine had started appearing on the streets.

Thirty years later, his supervisor assigned him to a multi-agency Silk Road task force to lead the money-laundering investigation. He knew nothing about Silk Road, Tor, or Bitcoin, so he started with the Gawker article. Remembering how a parking ticket cracked the Son of Sam case, he resolved to find a similarly small digital mistake—the “parking ticket” that would unmask Silk Road’s leader.