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KINGPIN

"So if you need me I sell card printers, card embossers, tippers, encoders, small readers and more. I know it sounds like advertising, but it's for you, a SAFE place to shop."

Business exploded overnight. Cesar built his own website, began vending on Shadowcrew, got an 800 number, and started accepting e-gold, an anonymous online currency favored by carders. He developed a reputation for excellent customer service. With customers in every time zone, he was scrupulous about answering the phone whenever it rang, day or night. It was always money on the other end of the line.

A canny businessman, he guaranteed same-day shipping and forged relationships with his rivals, so if he was caught short on an item, he could buy stock from a competitor to fill his orders and keep his customers happy. Strategic moves like that soon turned UBuyWeRush into the top supplier of hardware to a worldwide community of hackers and identity thieves. "Really good person, great to deal with," wrote a carder named Fear, advising a Shadowcrew newbie. "Don't scam UBuyWeRush cause he's a cool guy, and he'll keep your info on the downlow."

Cesar soon expanded his offerings to include hundreds of different products: skimmers, passport cameras, foil stampers, blank plastic, barcode printers, embossers, check paper, magnetic ink cartridges, even cable TV descramblers. Selling equipment wasn't in and of itself illegal, as long as he wasn't conspiring in its criminal applications. He even had some law-abiding customers who bought his gear to make corporate ID cards and school lunch vouchers.

Inundated with orders, Cesar ran a help-wanted ad in the classifieds and began hiring workers to inventory, pack, and ship his gear. As adjoining offices opened up, he annexed them for the extra storage space, doubling and then tripling his square footage. Fascinated by the global reach of his low-rent strip-mall operation, he bought a wall map, and every time he shipped to a new city he'd sink a pin into the location. After six months, the map was porcupined with pins throughout the United States,