📸 Photo

ANGLERPHISH

from using computers away from the office and told him to cut off contact with the reporter. Elizabeth left him—her name and occupation had been exposed in the breach.

Then Iceman stripped Johnson of his privileged position in Carders Market, and crooks he’d known since the Counterfeit Library days started refusing to do business with him. Johnson was running out of credibility, and the Secret Service was running out of patience.

In late March 2006, the agents decided to act on one of Anglerphish’s only catches, a California identity thief who’d stolen at least $200,000 by e-filing bogus tax returns through H&R Block, then collecting the refunds himself. Johnson, an expert in that particular scam, had been talking with the crook online, and the Secret Service had traced the chats to the C&C Internet Café in Hollywood. A Los Angeles agent visited the coffee shop and sat two tables away while the man filed his fake returns.

But when local police and Secret Service agents raided the target’s Hollywood apartment, they found it had been cleaned out: no computers and not a shred of documentary evidence. The suspect had done everything but deep-clean the carpet and paint the walls.

Johnson’s handlers in Columbia already suspected their asset of leaking his informant status after the drama on Carders Market. Now they had reason to believe he’d tipped off the target of an impending raid. They brought in a polygraph examiner and strapped Johnson to the box.

The needles were steady as Johnson answered the first two questions: Did he contact the target? Did he have anyone else contact the target? No and no. The final question was broader: Did Johnson have any unauthorized contact with anyone? “No,” he said again, his galvanic skin response skittering up the chart.

Despite the agents’ admonitions, Johnson had secretly continued his talks with the New York Times reporter, he admitted, and he was very serious about getting a book deal. The feds interrogated him until two