American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton.

Criminal, yes. Mastermind, not so much. I won’t spoil the story by telling you all about the man at the center of it, twenty something drug proponent and libertarian, Ross Ulbricht. Suffice it to say, he was able to elude identification and capture by multiple law enforcement agencies for a long time, not because he was such genius and master criminal, but rather because he was operating on the cutting edges of technology and the internet (the so-called dark web), and the afore-mentioned law enforcement agencies didn’t have the expertise to understand what he was doing exactly and how to catch him for a good while.

He called himself The Dread Pirate Roberts, Princess Bride allusion intended. He hoped to escape detection by pretending that he had turned his entire operation over to a new “Dread Pirate” long before the law caught up with him. It makes one wonder how many more cyber-criminals are out there justifying their grubby crimes by spouting idealistic juvenile propaganda about freedom and libertarian poppycock.

There’s also an episode in the book in which an associate of Ullbricht is invited to an evangelical church and “gets saved.” Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to been taught about sin and repentance and actually following Christ in obedience because she continues to engage in illicit sex and the production of pornography. It’s this kind of cheap conversion and Christianity that gives conversion itself a bad name and makes people think they can accept the love of Christ without acknowledging His Lordship over all of life. Another character in the book is an alleged follower of Christ who also becomes a corrupt cop and a thief. The book doesn’t have much good to say about the power of Christ to change lives.

Albricht himself grew up in Austin, Texas in a normal, middle-class home. Why did his path lead to his becoming the ultimate free-trading criminal of the Dark Web, creating a website called Silk Road where people could buy and sell not only drugs but also guns, hacking software, forgeries, counterfeit cash, and poisons freely and without limits? Again, it seems to have been the power even more than the money he was making that went to Ulbricht’s head. Why? I’m not sure.

American Kingpin is a fascinating look at the career and downfall of a man with more ambition than sense as well as telling the story of the law enforcement officers who found and captured Ulbricht and put an end to his overweening pride and plan to “change the world.” The idea that anyone should be free to put anything one wants into one’s own body, regardless of the consequences, is flawed, and as this story, shows, complete individual liberty leads to license and to chaos and even to death.