The FBI agent, considering rapidly, averted eye contact with Cazes and walked straight previous him to the door. Within the seconds it took for Cazes to cross the room, seemingly in sluggish movement, ideas raced by Rabenn’s thoughts: How did Cazes know who they had been? Or that they had been on his path? Or which resort they had been staying at in Bangkok? Had there been a leak? Had they been assembly too conspicuously, blowing their opsec? Had this legal mastermind outsmarted them?
In mere moments, Rabenn anticipated Cazes to take a seat down subsequent to them at their desk, smug expression on his face, and say, as he imagined it, “Fuck you guys, I do know you’re right here, and also you’re not going to get something.”
Rabenn realized he had no concept how he would reply. They may arrest Cazes on the spot, however they’d lose all hope of gaining access to his laptop computer or any smoking-gun proof of his management of AlphaBay. Simply as they had been on the cusp of victory, it appeared their plan had failed.
“Oh, shit,” Rabenn silently concluded, in a state of clean panic. “This factor’s over.”
Then, when Cazes was about 5 ft away from their desk, he turned and sat down on the desk subsequent to them, throughout from a pair of Israeli businessmen sporting fits and yarmulkes.
The Individuals checked out one another in confusion. After a second, the FBI agent returned and sat down casually. He and Miller started silently signaling to the remainder of the desk that everybody else ought to depart.
Rabenn, recovering his composure, allowed the thought to cross his thoughts that maybe all was not misplaced—that this was merely essentially the most beautiful coincidence of his life.
Doing their finest to behave naturally, the prosecutors cleared out and walked up the curved staircase to the mezzanine flooring of the resort, whereas the FBI agent and Miller hung again to listen in on Cazes’ dialog on the neighboring desk. On the ground above, Rabenn and Hemesath shared a second of wide-eyed aid. Textual content messages from the FBI and DEA brokers nonetheless on the desk started to roll in, reporting on Cazes’ assembly: He was speaking with the Israelis about one in every of his actual property funding offers within the Caribbean.
As their panic subsided, they now noticed {that a} group of Thai undercover police—together with the crew chief, Colonel Pisal Erb-Arb, in plain garments—had stationed themselves round one other desk throughout the resort lounge from Cazes and had been discreetly watching him, even stealthily taking pictures of one another that captured Cazes within the background. The AlphaBay founder gave no signal of getting noticed them.
As Rabenn and Hemesath silently rejoiced, the FBI agent joined them on the mezzanine flooring and pulled out his cellphone. He began Googling, making an attempt to calculate the chances of what had simply occurred. What number of lodges had been there in Bangkok, anyway? He rapidly confirmed them the reply: There have been hundreds.
In a euphoric daze, the 2 prosecutors marveled at their weird near-collision—however not for lengthy. In two days, they knew their crew can be encountering Cazes face-to-face once more, this time in essentially the most elaborate arrest that they had ever tried.
Continued subsequent week: The day of the takedown arrives. Operation Bayonet reaches its kinetic climax. And then the case takes a tragic twist.
This story is excerpted from the e-book Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency, obtainable now from Doubleday.
In case you purchase one thing utilizing hyperlinks in our tales, we might earn a fee. This helps help our journalism. Learn more.
Chapter illustrations: Reymundo Perez III
Picture supply: Getty Photos
This text seems within the December 2022/January 2023 subject. Subscribe now.
Tell us what you consider this text. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com.
