Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Society & Culture
The dark-web drug kingpin who hid in plain sight
To most, Lin Rui-siang appeared to be a hardworking early career programmer and cyber security expert working for the Taiwanese embassy in St Lucia. But on May 18th he was arrested at JFK by US homeland security. The 23-year-old is thought to be the mastermind king pin ‘Pharaoh’, the creator and operator of one of the dark web's most notorious online drug marketplaces. Over the past few years Lin is accused of overseeing the sale of millions of dollars’ worth of illicit substances and eventually even using the site to steal from and extort his clientele. But who is this mysterious alleged cyber-criminal, and how was he able to present such a respectable face to the world?
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