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Comment by eatonphil | Hacker News Reader

Reminds me of Evan Ratliff's The Mastermind [0] about Paul Le Roux building an illegal online pharmacy and how eventually he was caught.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41181600-the-mastermind

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Wow, there's a blast from the past. Here's another piece [0] by Ratliff about trying to go off the grid while orchestrating a manhunt for himself. It scratches the same spy-crime-opsec itch that the other links in this thread do, and left a lasting impression on 8-year-old me.

[0] https://www.wired.com/2009/11/ff-vanish2/

Along the same lines there’s a German show (on US Netflix) called “How to Sell Drugs Online Fast” that’s loosely based on the true story of a teenager[1] who started an online drug business from his bedroom. It’s pretty funny and a bit Silicon Valley-esque. There’s also a documentary where he’s interviewed. I think it’s called “Shiny Flakes” which was the name of his website.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/03/german-teen-so...

IIRC, Shiny Flakes went back into the business after the Netflix show and ended up getting busted.

Talk about horrible OPSEC.

Like snoop from the wire using her profits from a (fictional) west baltimoreheroin selling conspiracy to,in fact, establish a west Baltimore heroin selling conspiracy.

Ah yes, this story was amazing.

I didn't know there was a book, but there was a series of articles a while ago by the same author : https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind/

One of my favorite books!

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