From Russia to the DEA: A Crypto Detective’s Incredible Story | WIRED Article Discussion

Welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast! In this episode, we discuss the extraordinary true story of Lili Infante, a Russian-born DEA agent who became a pioneering cryptocurrency detective. The story comes from WIRED, in an article by Joshuah Bearman and Owen Long titled “She Was the DEA’s Premier Crypto Detective. The Clues Led Straight to Her Own Family.” Click here for the story on Wired.

How do we talk about this story?

• Anne, you’re a true crime podcast listener. Do those people investigate those stories themselves or are they also just reading about something and then telling the story?
• I think one thing we’re doing: we’re telling friends about a fascinating article we read, like we might a movie or something that happened to us.

Some ideas (at times themes) to keep in mind as we go through this story:

1. I’m astonished that Lili’s life can take this path from Moscow. And sometimes, it makes me feel like I suck not going to Columbia.
2. Who are we really? Lili can just become Olga in Miami.
3. Lili is a different kind of mom than our Mom and Megan is a mom. I am a different kind of dad than Lili’s dad. The father of her baby, does he sound like a good dad?
4. The idea of Good vs. Evil or a mix of both.
5. Family loyalty vs. moral responsibility.
6. Betrayal and Forgiveness.

An excerpt that shows the drug trade:

• Ever since the cocaine explosion of the 1980s, Miami had been America’s central depot for the drug. Geography made it inevitable. The city leans into the Atlantic, pointing toward the Caribbean—the source of endless contraband, smuggled in by imaginative cartels. In the heyday of the cocaine trade, powerboats rocketed across Biscayne Bay, their hulls stuffed with powder. Cessnas drifted in low over the skyline, dodging radar to land on airstrips in the Everglades. Cartel divers attached magnetic parcels to cargo ship hulls. Homemade narco subs slipped unseen beneath the surface.

The Dark Web makes an appearance. I don’t think I’ve thought about this:

• The dark web is a hidden part of the internet that you can’t access through ordinary web browsers like Chrome or Safari. It typically requires special software, such as Tor, which helps conceal users’ identities and locations.

Three parts of the internet:

1. Surface web: Websites you can find through Google, such as ESPN, Amazon, and Wikipedia.
2. Deep web: Parts of the internet that aren’t indexed by search engines, such as your email inbox, bank accounts, and private university databases.
3. Dark web: A small portion of the deep web that requires special software or configurations to access and is designed to provide greater anonymity.

Lili, code name Olga, got into this from crime dramas and then it was TV again, watching The Good Wife, that turned her on to bit coin.

The end, with a lot to discuss:

• So what can you do? You can recognize that the world is messy; that people fail you, and you fail them. You make peace with ambiguity. You realize that love and imperfection can coexist. You see that knowing this is the real safety net. Institutions may not be the answer, but people are. You forgive your mother. You forgive your grandmother. You look in the rearview mirror and see that your daughter in the back seat is likable and chatty, a sociable spitfire, like her father. You raise her the best you can, the way your mother could not do for you, to see the world for all its possibilities.

The specialized vocabulary of this world. When we study Discourses in my classes, we call this the lexis.

• Tor: Lili uses Tor to investigate anonymous drug dealers. — Software that disguises users’ internet activity and locations.
• Blockchain: Lili learns to trace transactions on the blockchain. — A permanent digital record of cryptocurrency transactions.
• Crypto Wallet: Lili discovers $500,000 in a drug dealer’s bitcoin wallet. — Software or hardware used to control cryptocurrency.
• Hydra: Lili helps shut down Hydra in 2022. — A massive Russian dark-web marketplace with 17 million users.
• Silk Road: Lili studies the investigation that brought down Silk Road. — An early dark-web marketplace notorious for illegal drug sales.
• Dream Market: Lili targets Dream Market after Silk Road closes. — A major dark-web marketplace selling drugs and stolen information.
• God Pill: A Missouri dealer sells something called the God Pill. — A dangerous mixture of cocaine, amphetamines, and fentanyl.
• Alpha-PVP (Bath Salts): Lili purchases Alpha-PVP from an online dealer. — A powerful synthetic stimulant.
• Klad (Hidden Treasure): Hydra dealers deliver drugs through hidden treasures called klads. — Drug packages concealed in public locations for buyers to retrieve.
• Kladsman: Nina’s grandson works as a kladsman. — A courier who hides drug packages for customers.
• Geocaching: Hydra uses a system resembling geocaching to deliver drugs. — Using GPS coordinates to locate hidden objects.
• Money Mule: Lili follows a money mule through Miami. — Someone who transports or transfers money for others, often criminals.
• Hawaladar: Lili learns about hawaladars from her DEA mentor. — A broker who transfers money through an informal trust-based network.
• RICO: Lili begins her career helping investigate a Russian gang under RICO. — A federal law used to prosecute organized criminal enterprises.
• The Eye: Lili takes the eye during a DEA surveillance operation. — The agent responsible for maintaining visual contact with a suspect.
• Heat Run: Agents worry a suspect might pull a heat run. — Evasive driving intended to detect or escape surveillance.
• Darknet Marketplace: Hydra becomes the world’s largest darknet marketplace. — An online market operating on an anonymity network, often associated with illicit goods.
• Doxing: Hydra exposes the identities of rival marketplace administrators. — Publicly revealing someone’s private identifying information.
• Blackhat Hacker: Hydra’s financial network attracts concern about blackhat hackers. — Someone who hacks computer systems for malicious or illegal purposes.
• Drug Precursors: Hydra vendors obtain synthetic drug precursors from China and India. — Chemicals used to manufacture drugs.
• Purity Tester: Lili infiltrates Hydra by posing as a drug purity tester. — Someone who analyzes the composition and strength of drugs.

The characters:

• Luis Infante: Lili’s DEA-agent husband.
• Jose Irizarry: Celebrated DEA investigator and Lili’s mentor who was exposed as a corrupt agent stealing millions and partying with drug traffickers.
• Tigran Gambaryan: Brilliant IRS investigator and blockchain detective who helped expose corrupt DEA agents and eventually teamed up with Lili against Hydra.
• Carl Force: Corrupt DEA agent who stole more than $700,000 in bitcoin while investigating Silk Road.
• Gal Vallerius (OxyMonster): French drug kingpin and competitive beard grower arrested while traveling to the World Beard and Mustache Championships in Texas.
• Kitt3n: Unidentified Dream Market leader who partnered with OxyMonster as part of the self-described Dream Team.
• Chrissano Leslie (Owlcity): Jamaican drug dealer operating from suburban Miami who sold fentanyl online and was caught after Lili tricked him into revealing his IP address.
• Joshua Kelly (UStoUS): Missouri smoke-shop owner who sold a dangerous drug cocktail called the God Pill and was arrested in a house full of pill-making equipment.
• HonestCocaine: Dark-web cocaine dealer whose product Lili purchased to demonstrate to her DEA supervisor that online drug trafficking was real.
• Dmitry Pavlov: Russian computer specialist who hosted Hydra’s servers and was reportedly arrested after the marketplace was dismantled in 2022.
• No Name: Mysterious figure who merged roughly 100 Russian dark-web sites into Hydra in 2015.
• Satoshi Nakamoto: One of Hydra’s two leaders, using the name associated with bitcoin’s mysterious creator.
• Zog: Hydra’s principal programmer.
• Fat Cat: Hydra administrator.
• Handsome Jack: Customer dispute moderator for Hydra.
• Fatality: Another Hydra customer dispute moderator.
• GlavRed: Hydra’s marketing specialist, helping promote the criminal marketplace.
• Boris Nayfeld: Russian mob boss in Brighton Beach whose organization was involved in drugs, smuggling, human trafficking, and other crimes.
• Nikolai Dozortsev: Ukrainian gangster investigated for allegedly importing millions of ecstasy tablets and laundering the proceeds.
• Diego Marin (The Contraband King): Colombian smuggler and alleged money launderer linked to corrupt DEA agent Jose Irizarry.
• Igor: Colombian businessman and DEA informant who earned enormous payments for introducing agents to criminals through his car and electronics businesses.
• Nina: Lili’s beloved grandmother and moral compass who secretly became a Hydra marijuana dealer to rescue her grandson from gangsters.
• Katya: Lili’s troubled mother, a former aspiring actress whose alcoholism and instability shaped Lili’s childhood before she became a devoted grandmother.
• Dennis (Kladsman): Lili’s teenage cousin who became involved with Russian drug gangs and helped Nina distribute marijuana through hidden drop-off locations.

A golden line: Surveillance is like war: mostly boring.

Next week:

• We’ll discuss “The New Age of Reading,” from the New Yorker, by Nathan Heller. Click here for the article on The New Yorker.
• Let’s also visit and buy at least one thing from a bookstore.

Thanks for stopping by Torg Stories! We appreciate you!