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KINGPIN

As on CarderPlanet, each product had its own specialists, and every vendor had to be reviewed by a trusted site member before they were allowed to sell. Disputes were handled judiciously, with administrators and moderators working overtime to expose and ban rippers selling bunk products.

The trading wandered beyond data into tangible items like ATM skimmers, prescription drugs, and cocaine, and into services like distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks—take down any website for $200—and malware customization to evade antivirus products. One well-reviewed vendor offered a test-taking service that promised to get customers technical certifications within days. A vendor called UBuyWeRush sprang up to flood the underground with magnetic stripe writers, as well as must-haves like safety paper and magnetic ink cartridges for counterfeiting checks.

Child porn was forbidden, and one vendor who asked to be reviewed for exotic animal sales was laughed off the board. But nearly anything else was fair game on Shadowcrew.

By this time, CarderPlanet had launched subforums for criminals from Asia, Europe, and the States, but it was Shadowcrew that forged a true international marketplace: a cross between the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Star Wars's Mos Eisley cantina, where criminals of varying disciplines could meet up and collaborate on heists. An identity thief in Denver could buy credit card numbers from a hacker in Moscow, send them to Shanghai to be turned into counterfeit cards, then pick up a fake driver's license from a forger in Ukraine before hitting the mall.

Max shared his discovery with Chris, who was fascinated. Chris logged on to the forums and studied the content like a textbook. A lot of things hadn't changed since he'd dealt in credit card fraud in the 1980s. Other things had changed a lot.

There was a time when crooks could literally pull credit card numbers