Cloned Boy
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The Conduit Story: How a Teen Built a Darknet Cashout Empire and Destroyed Himself
This story tells the story of a man known on the darknet as Conduit. In just a couple of years, he went from a schoolboy with a passion for cybersecurity to the creator of the underground ShadowWash network, through which more than twelve million dollars of dirty money passed.
He started with forums, Python, and Wi-Fi hacks. Then there were drops, crypto, cashouts, and coordinators in every major US state. Everything was going perfectly — until the mysterious Kingmaker appeared on the horizon.
The story is told in the first person, with maximum detail of events, psychological decisions, and behind-the-scenes schemes. This is not fiction — it is a picture of the world that anyone who gets too deeply involved in the shadows of the Internet can end up in.
Important: All video information is for educational purposes only. We do not promote or encourage any illegal activity.
Contents:
When the FBI knocks down your door at 4am, you have exactly 12 seconds before they come up to the second floor. That's just enough time to press one button. That red button that erases 3 years of your life in a split second. I was known on the Darknet as a conduit. Over the past 3 years, over 10 million dollars of dirty money have passed through my Shadow Wash network. But the story began much earlier.
With the simple curiosity of a 12-year-old boy who just wanted to understand how computers work. It was February 2018, I turned 14, and my dad brought home an old Dell Optiplex from work. It was a shame to throw it away, maybe my son will need it for school, he told my mother. He didn't know that he was signing my death warrant. The first few months I just played old games and surfed the internet, but by summer I was drawn deeper.
I found programming forums, downloaded my first Python textbooks, and started figuring out Linux. My peers were playing football, and I was sitting in the basement learning how to hack my neighbors' Wi-Fi. By the fall of 2018, I already knew what Tor was, and accidentally stumbled upon my first darknet market. Not for shopping, just out of curiosity. But what I saw there changed my understanding of the Internet.
It was a whole world hidden from ordinary people, a world where people traded everything imaginable and remained completely anonymous. On the morning of February 22, 2019, I made my first real hack. The target was the database of a local auto repair shop. Nothing serious. I just wanted to see if it would work. It took me 40 minutes. I downloaded all their files, looked through them, and then simply deleted them from mine.
At that time, I still didn't know what to do with the stolen information. But the adrenaline was incredible. The feeling of power, control, the fact that you can get into places where others can’t go – it was more addictive than any drug. By the summer of 2019, I was already earning my first money by hacking accounts on social networks to order. The amounts were ridiculous – from 20 to 50 dollars per account. But for a 15-year-old teenager, this was a lot of money.
My parents thought I was earning money by tutoring in computer science. The real turning point happened in the fall of 2020, when I met a man nicknamed Architect on one of the hacker forums. He offered me a job. Not just one-time hacks, but ongoing cooperation. You have talent, kid. He wrote to me in a private chat, but you waste it on trifles.
Architect taught me the main rule of the Darknet – never work directly with clients. There should always be intermediaries, several levels of protection between you and those who ultimately get the result. Once you become visible, he said, you are already dead. By the end of 2020, I was no longer a simple lone hacker. I was studying money laundering schemes, understanding cryptocurrencies, building my own secure communication channels.
And that’s when I had an idea that would turn into a masterpiece two years later. But first, I had to understand one simple thing. Honest people don’t survive on the Darknet. Honesty on the Darknet is a luxury you can’t afford. I realized this on January 12, 2000, at age 21, when I betrayed a man for the first time. His name was Cryptoking, and he was my first real partner after the Architect.
We met on a forum where he was looking for a hacker to break into the payment system of a small online casino. The amount was serious – $15,000 for the job plus 10% of the stolen money. It took me three weeks to hack it. The casino used an outdated version of the payment system with a security hole that I learned about from the Architect. By early February, we had $340,000 in bitcoins in a shared wallet.
Everything was going according to plan until Cryptoking suggested a small change in the terms. “Hey, kid,” he wrote to me in encrypted chat on February 8. “What if we don’t stop? I have contacts at three more casinos. We can create a permanent scheme.” The idea was tempting, but something was bothering me. CryptoKing was too quick to offer to expand the operation, too willing to take risks.
The architect always said that when a partner gets greedy, it’s time to get rid of them. I started digging up information about CryptoKinka through acquaintances on forums. What I learned made my blood turn to ice. It turned out that three months ago, he had worked with a couple of hackers from Germany on a similar scheme. The operation failed, the Germans were arrested, and CryptoKing disappeared with all the money. On February 17, 2021, I made a decision that would change me forever.
Instead of simply breaking off the partnership, I did what any Darknet survivor would do. I struck first. I transferred all the money from our shared wallet to my addresses, simultaneously sending the forum administration a dossier on Cryptoking I compiled with evidence of his previous scams. An hour later, his account was blocked. My share was supposed to be about $50,000.
Instead, I received all 340,000. I justified myself by saying that he was preparing to screw me over, but the truth was simpler. I simply chose money over principles. This money became the starting capital for Shadowash. In the spring of 2021, I began to study the cryptocurrency laundering market. Most services worked on the same principle - technological mixers that mixed bitcoins between thousands of addresses, making transactions untraceable.
But they all had one problem - they left digital traces. Law enforcement agencies were becoming smarter at analyzing the blockchain. Every month, large mixers were closed, administrators were arrested, millions were confiscated. I needed a fundamentally different approach. The idea came to me on June 23, 2021, when I read the news about another closure of Bitcoin Fox, one of the oldest mixers on the Darknet.
The police tracked the transactions through complex blockchain analysis algorithms. What if we removed technology from the equation altogether? I thought. Instead of automated mixers, real people. Instead of complex algorithms, simple human chains. The client sends bitcoins, the drops cash them out via ATMs and cards. The coordinators collect the cash and hand it over to the client.
No servers to confiscate. No algorithms to analyze. Just people who can be bought. And cash that is untraceable. By August 2021, I had a ready-made Shadow Wash plan and enough money to launch. All that was left was to find people. I found my first coordinator on the LocalBitcoins forum. His name was Phoenix, and he had been cashing out cryptocurrency in small volumes for two years. When I offered him a permanent job with a guaranteed income of $ 3,000 per month, he agreed without hesitation.
“The main rule,” I told him in our first conversation. “You don’t know who I am.” "I don't know who you are." On September 3, 2021, we conducted the first test operation. Five thousand dollars in bitcoins turned into cash in 48 hours.
The commission was 15%, which is significantly less than our competitors. Shadow Wash was born, but I didn't yet know that every success on the Darknet brings you closer to your own death. Money on the Darknet smells of fear. And by the end of 2021, this smell followed me everywhere. In three months of operation, Shadow Wash has already processed 200 thousand dollars.
Phoenix coped with its territory - the East Coast. But applications came from all over the country. I needed to scale, which meant looking for new coordinators. I found the second person in my network by chance. On November 15, 2021, an ad appeared on the Black Market forum "Looking for a permanent job in cashing out." 3 years of experience, own team of drops in Texas.
The author signed up as Viper. I studied his story on the forum for 2 days. Clean reputation, positive reviews, no failures. But most importantly, he was already working with a team. This meant a ready-made infrastructure. Our first meeting in an encrypted chat took place on November 18. What do you offer? His first question was business-like. A stable flow of clients, a base salary of 4,000 plus a percentage of turnover.
Your territory is all states from Texas to California. Commission. 15% total. Of which 8% for you and your drop, 7% for me for clients and coordination. There was silence for 5 minutes. Then the answer came. Dill. By Christmas 2021, I had two regional coordinators. And a total turnover of half a million dollars. But the real breakthrough happened in January 2022, when a client contacted me.
The one that changed everything. His nickname was simply Client7. But the size of the order spoke for itself. Two million dollars in bitcoin had to be converted into cash in two weeks. The largest operation in the history of Shadow Wash. Where did that money come from, I asked in the chat. It’s better not to know. Can you handle it or not. I knew it was either a breakthrough or a trap. But the amount was too tempting.
My share was $300,000. For such an operation, I needed additional people. Through Phoenix, I found a coordinator in Chicago, a girl named Shade, who specialized in working with shell companies. Through Viper, I got in touch with an international transfer specialist from Miami. By February 2022, my network looked like a real corporation. Four regional coordinators, each with their own team of drops, a total staff of about 40 people across the country.
The operation with client seven took 12 days. We split $2 million into hundreds of small transactions, ran it through dozens of ATMs and cards in different states, and collected the cash through a network of shell companies. Everything went smoothly. When the last packet of money was handed over to the client, I knew. Shadow Wash was no longer a startup. It was an industrial-scale money laundering machine.
But success on the Dark Web is a double-edged sword. The more you make, the more people pay attention to you. And not just clients. On March 5, 2022, Phoenix sent me a message that made my hands shake. Someone was asking questions about Shadow Wash on the forum. The user had a new account, but the questions were too specific. I checked the forum. The user was interested in our rates, geography, work, volumes, operation.
The questions looked like they were from a potential client, but something about the wording was alarming. Too professional for a newbie, a viper wrote to me that same day. I made the decision that saved my life - to completely change operational security. New servers, new communication channels, new nicknames for all coordinators. A week later, New Investor disappeared from the forum without making a single order. By the summer of 2022, Shadow Wash was processing over a million dollars a month.
I had two houses in different states, fake documents in three names, and enough money to disappear at any moment. But I couldn’t stop. The service. The money, the power. The feeling of controlling an entire shadow empire. It was more addictive than any drug. On August 1, 2022, the largest client in the history of the service contacted me. The application was for 5 million dollars.
Little did I know, this was the beginning of the end. $5 million isn’t just money. It’s the point of no return, after which you either become a Darknet legend or disappear forever. The client showed up on August 1, 2022, under the nickname Kingmaker. The account was old, the reputation was impeccable, but the request was insane even by Shadow Wash standards. “I need to clean 5 million in a month.
Can you handle it?” His first message was extremely laconic. I stared at the screen for half an hour, rereading the number. My share was $750,000, more than I’d earned in the entire previous year. Source, I wrote. Better not to know. But I guarantee it’s not the FBI or a trap. Just a business that needs to be made invisible.
For such an operation, I needed to double the network. By the end of August, Shadow Wash already had 60 people working. Six regional coordinators, each with a team of eight drops. The geography covered the entire country from New York to Los Angeles. I developed a new scheme specifically for King Maker. The money was split into thousands of microtransactions of 2-5 thousand dollars each. Each transaction went through a chain of three drops in different states.
The first one received bitcoins and cashed them out through ATMs. The second one took the cash and transferred it via money transfers. The third one received the transfers and transferred the final amount to the client. The operation started on August 15, 2022. The first week went perfectly. 1.2 million were successfully processed without a single failure. Coordinators reported stable work, drops received their percentages, the client was happy with the speed.
But in the second week, strange things started. On August 22, Phoenix sent an alarming message. "One of my drops in Boston says he is being followed. Saw the same car three days in a row. I ordered this drop to be temporarily excluded from the operation, but TWO DAYS later, similar messages came from a viper in Texas and our guy in Miami. Either we have mass paranoia, or someone is actually monitoring us.
Shade wrote to me from Chicago. On August 25th, I made the decision to pause the operation for 48 hours to analyze the situation. Kingmaker was unhappy. I have a tight deadline. Every day that goes by costs me money. Safety is more important than speed. I responded. But inside, I was gnawing at doubt. What if this is just paranoia? What if I’m losing my biggest client because of fear? The response came at 3:47 am on August 27th. Phoenix had sent an emergency message.
Drops in Philadelphia were busted. Full search. Computers and phones were taken. My heart stopped. If they have phones, then they have correspondence. If they have correspondence, then they can trace the connections. I spent the next six hours in a panic, wiping the server and changing all communication channels, warning coordinators. By noon, the entire Shadow Wash infrastructure was destroyed and rebuilt from scratch.
But it was too late. On August 28, Dropp was arrested in Houston, on the 29th, the coordinator in Denver. Then three at once in Los Angeles. I realized that these were not random raids. Someone was methodically taking apart my network, piece by piece. On August 31, Kingmaker sent a final message. The operation is canceled. You can keep the money for the part you’ve already processed. I stared at that message, and it hit me.
Too convenient. Too timely. Kingmaker showed up just when my network was at its maximum size. He offered exactly the amount of money that would force me to expand as much as possible. And then he disappeared just when the arrests started. Kingmaker was not a client. He was bait. Someone had spent months forcing me to grow the network to a size that could be effectively shut down. He used my greed against me.
On September 1, 2022, I made the hardest decision of my life: shut down Shadow Wash. I sent the same message to all the remaining coordinators: the operation is permanently terminated. Destroy all traces, change documents, disappear. Then I wiped all servers, destroyed all wallets, deleted all accounts. In two years, Shadow Wash processed more than 12 million dollars.
My share was almost 2 million. But the price was too high, half of my people were in prison, and the best analysts in the world were hunting me. On September 3rd, I left my house for the last time, knowing that Conduit was dead. Now I had to learn to live with a new name in a new world. But the hunters were already on my trail. And I had very little time left.
This story tells the story of a man known on the darknet as Conduit. In just a couple of years, he went from a schoolboy with a passion for cybersecurity to the creator of the underground ShadowWash network, through which more than twelve million dollars of dirty money passed.
He started with forums, Python, and Wi-Fi hacks. Then there were drops, crypto, cashouts, and coordinators in every major US state. Everything was going perfectly — until the mysterious Kingmaker appeared on the horizon.
The story is told in the first person, with maximum detail of events, psychological decisions, and behind-the-scenes schemes. This is not fiction — it is a picture of the world that anyone who gets too deeply involved in the shadows of the Internet can end up in.
Important: All video information is for educational purposes only. We do not promote or encourage any illegal activity.Contents:
- How crypto laundering schemes through droppers actually work
- Why You Can't Trust Even Yourself on the Darknet
- What are the signs that indicate a trap by the secret services?
- How to Destroy Your Own Empire Without Even Realizing It
When the FBI knocks down your door at 4am, you have exactly 12 seconds before they come up to the second floor. That's just enough time to press one button. That red button that erases 3 years of your life in a split second. I was known on the Darknet as a conduit. Over the past 3 years, over 10 million dollars of dirty money have passed through my Shadow Wash network. But the story began much earlier.
With the simple curiosity of a 12-year-old boy who just wanted to understand how computers work. It was February 2018, I turned 14, and my dad brought home an old Dell Optiplex from work. It was a shame to throw it away, maybe my son will need it for school, he told my mother. He didn't know that he was signing my death warrant. The first few months I just played old games and surfed the internet, but by summer I was drawn deeper.
I found programming forums, downloaded my first Python textbooks, and started figuring out Linux. My peers were playing football, and I was sitting in the basement learning how to hack my neighbors' Wi-Fi. By the fall of 2018, I already knew what Tor was, and accidentally stumbled upon my first darknet market. Not for shopping, just out of curiosity. But what I saw there changed my understanding of the Internet.
It was a whole world hidden from ordinary people, a world where people traded everything imaginable and remained completely anonymous. On the morning of February 22, 2019, I made my first real hack. The target was the database of a local auto repair shop. Nothing serious. I just wanted to see if it would work. It took me 40 minutes. I downloaded all their files, looked through them, and then simply deleted them from mine.
At that time, I still didn't know what to do with the stolen information. But the adrenaline was incredible. The feeling of power, control, the fact that you can get into places where others can’t go – it was more addictive than any drug. By the summer of 2019, I was already earning my first money by hacking accounts on social networks to order. The amounts were ridiculous – from 20 to 50 dollars per account. But for a 15-year-old teenager, this was a lot of money.
My parents thought I was earning money by tutoring in computer science. The real turning point happened in the fall of 2020, when I met a man nicknamed Architect on one of the hacker forums. He offered me a job. Not just one-time hacks, but ongoing cooperation. You have talent, kid. He wrote to me in a private chat, but you waste it on trifles.
Architect taught me the main rule of the Darknet – never work directly with clients. There should always be intermediaries, several levels of protection between you and those who ultimately get the result. Once you become visible, he said, you are already dead. By the end of 2020, I was no longer a simple lone hacker. I was studying money laundering schemes, understanding cryptocurrencies, building my own secure communication channels.
And that’s when I had an idea that would turn into a masterpiece two years later. But first, I had to understand one simple thing. Honest people don’t survive on the Darknet. Honesty on the Darknet is a luxury you can’t afford. I realized this on January 12, 2000, at age 21, when I betrayed a man for the first time. His name was Cryptoking, and he was my first real partner after the Architect.
We met on a forum where he was looking for a hacker to break into the payment system of a small online casino. The amount was serious – $15,000 for the job plus 10% of the stolen money. It took me three weeks to hack it. The casino used an outdated version of the payment system with a security hole that I learned about from the Architect. By early February, we had $340,000 in bitcoins in a shared wallet.
Everything was going according to plan until Cryptoking suggested a small change in the terms. “Hey, kid,” he wrote to me in encrypted chat on February 8. “What if we don’t stop? I have contacts at three more casinos. We can create a permanent scheme.” The idea was tempting, but something was bothering me. CryptoKing was too quick to offer to expand the operation, too willing to take risks.
The architect always said that when a partner gets greedy, it’s time to get rid of them. I started digging up information about CryptoKinka through acquaintances on forums. What I learned made my blood turn to ice. It turned out that three months ago, he had worked with a couple of hackers from Germany on a similar scheme. The operation failed, the Germans were arrested, and CryptoKing disappeared with all the money. On February 17, 2021, I made a decision that would change me forever.
Instead of simply breaking off the partnership, I did what any Darknet survivor would do. I struck first. I transferred all the money from our shared wallet to my addresses, simultaneously sending the forum administration a dossier on Cryptoking I compiled with evidence of his previous scams. An hour later, his account was blocked. My share was supposed to be about $50,000.
Instead, I received all 340,000. I justified myself by saying that he was preparing to screw me over, but the truth was simpler. I simply chose money over principles. This money became the starting capital for Shadowash. In the spring of 2021, I began to study the cryptocurrency laundering market. Most services worked on the same principle - technological mixers that mixed bitcoins between thousands of addresses, making transactions untraceable.
But they all had one problem - they left digital traces. Law enforcement agencies were becoming smarter at analyzing the blockchain. Every month, large mixers were closed, administrators were arrested, millions were confiscated. I needed a fundamentally different approach. The idea came to me on June 23, 2021, when I read the news about another closure of Bitcoin Fox, one of the oldest mixers on the Darknet.
The police tracked the transactions through complex blockchain analysis algorithms. What if we removed technology from the equation altogether? I thought. Instead of automated mixers, real people. Instead of complex algorithms, simple human chains. The client sends bitcoins, the drops cash them out via ATMs and cards. The coordinators collect the cash and hand it over to the client.
No servers to confiscate. No algorithms to analyze. Just people who can be bought. And cash that is untraceable. By August 2021, I had a ready-made Shadow Wash plan and enough money to launch. All that was left was to find people. I found my first coordinator on the LocalBitcoins forum. His name was Phoenix, and he had been cashing out cryptocurrency in small volumes for two years. When I offered him a permanent job with a guaranteed income of $ 3,000 per month, he agreed without hesitation.
“The main rule,” I told him in our first conversation. “You don’t know who I am.” "I don't know who you are." On September 3, 2021, we conducted the first test operation. Five thousand dollars in bitcoins turned into cash in 48 hours.
The commission was 15%, which is significantly less than our competitors. Shadow Wash was born, but I didn't yet know that every success on the Darknet brings you closer to your own death. Money on the Darknet smells of fear. And by the end of 2021, this smell followed me everywhere. In three months of operation, Shadow Wash has already processed 200 thousand dollars.
Phoenix coped with its territory - the East Coast. But applications came from all over the country. I needed to scale, which meant looking for new coordinators. I found the second person in my network by chance. On November 15, 2021, an ad appeared on the Black Market forum "Looking for a permanent job in cashing out." 3 years of experience, own team of drops in Texas.
The author signed up as Viper. I studied his story on the forum for 2 days. Clean reputation, positive reviews, no failures. But most importantly, he was already working with a team. This meant a ready-made infrastructure. Our first meeting in an encrypted chat took place on November 18. What do you offer? His first question was business-like. A stable flow of clients, a base salary of 4,000 plus a percentage of turnover.
Your territory is all states from Texas to California. Commission. 15% total. Of which 8% for you and your drop, 7% for me for clients and coordination. There was silence for 5 minutes. Then the answer came. Dill. By Christmas 2021, I had two regional coordinators. And a total turnover of half a million dollars. But the real breakthrough happened in January 2022, when a client contacted me.
The one that changed everything. His nickname was simply Client7. But the size of the order spoke for itself. Two million dollars in bitcoin had to be converted into cash in two weeks. The largest operation in the history of Shadow Wash. Where did that money come from, I asked in the chat. It’s better not to know. Can you handle it or not. I knew it was either a breakthrough or a trap. But the amount was too tempting.
My share was $300,000. For such an operation, I needed additional people. Through Phoenix, I found a coordinator in Chicago, a girl named Shade, who specialized in working with shell companies. Through Viper, I got in touch with an international transfer specialist from Miami. By February 2022, my network looked like a real corporation. Four regional coordinators, each with their own team of drops, a total staff of about 40 people across the country.
The operation with client seven took 12 days. We split $2 million into hundreds of small transactions, ran it through dozens of ATMs and cards in different states, and collected the cash through a network of shell companies. Everything went smoothly. When the last packet of money was handed over to the client, I knew. Shadow Wash was no longer a startup. It was an industrial-scale money laundering machine.
But success on the Dark Web is a double-edged sword. The more you make, the more people pay attention to you. And not just clients. On March 5, 2022, Phoenix sent me a message that made my hands shake. Someone was asking questions about Shadow Wash on the forum. The user had a new account, but the questions were too specific. I checked the forum. The user was interested in our rates, geography, work, volumes, operation.
The questions looked like they were from a potential client, but something about the wording was alarming. Too professional for a newbie, a viper wrote to me that same day. I made the decision that saved my life - to completely change operational security. New servers, new communication channels, new nicknames for all coordinators. A week later, New Investor disappeared from the forum without making a single order. By the summer of 2022, Shadow Wash was processing over a million dollars a month.
I had two houses in different states, fake documents in three names, and enough money to disappear at any moment. But I couldn’t stop. The service. The money, the power. The feeling of controlling an entire shadow empire. It was more addictive than any drug. On August 1, 2022, the largest client in the history of the service contacted me. The application was for 5 million dollars.
Little did I know, this was the beginning of the end. $5 million isn’t just money. It’s the point of no return, after which you either become a Darknet legend or disappear forever. The client showed up on August 1, 2022, under the nickname Kingmaker. The account was old, the reputation was impeccable, but the request was insane even by Shadow Wash standards. “I need to clean 5 million in a month.
Can you handle it?” His first message was extremely laconic. I stared at the screen for half an hour, rereading the number. My share was $750,000, more than I’d earned in the entire previous year. Source, I wrote. Better not to know. But I guarantee it’s not the FBI or a trap. Just a business that needs to be made invisible.
For such an operation, I needed to double the network. By the end of August, Shadow Wash already had 60 people working. Six regional coordinators, each with a team of eight drops. The geography covered the entire country from New York to Los Angeles. I developed a new scheme specifically for King Maker. The money was split into thousands of microtransactions of 2-5 thousand dollars each. Each transaction went through a chain of three drops in different states.
The first one received bitcoins and cashed them out through ATMs. The second one took the cash and transferred it via money transfers. The third one received the transfers and transferred the final amount to the client. The operation started on August 15, 2022. The first week went perfectly. 1.2 million were successfully processed without a single failure. Coordinators reported stable work, drops received their percentages, the client was happy with the speed.
But in the second week, strange things started. On August 22, Phoenix sent an alarming message. "One of my drops in Boston says he is being followed. Saw the same car three days in a row. I ordered this drop to be temporarily excluded from the operation, but TWO DAYS later, similar messages came from a viper in Texas and our guy in Miami. Either we have mass paranoia, or someone is actually monitoring us.
Shade wrote to me from Chicago. On August 25th, I made the decision to pause the operation for 48 hours to analyze the situation. Kingmaker was unhappy. I have a tight deadline. Every day that goes by costs me money. Safety is more important than speed. I responded. But inside, I was gnawing at doubt. What if this is just paranoia? What if I’m losing my biggest client because of fear? The response came at 3:47 am on August 27th. Phoenix had sent an emergency message.
Drops in Philadelphia were busted. Full search. Computers and phones were taken. My heart stopped. If they have phones, then they have correspondence. If they have correspondence, then they can trace the connections. I spent the next six hours in a panic, wiping the server and changing all communication channels, warning coordinators. By noon, the entire Shadow Wash infrastructure was destroyed and rebuilt from scratch.
But it was too late. On August 28, Dropp was arrested in Houston, on the 29th, the coordinator in Denver. Then three at once in Los Angeles. I realized that these were not random raids. Someone was methodically taking apart my network, piece by piece. On August 31, Kingmaker sent a final message. The operation is canceled. You can keep the money for the part you’ve already processed. I stared at that message, and it hit me.
Too convenient. Too timely. Kingmaker showed up just when my network was at its maximum size. He offered exactly the amount of money that would force me to expand as much as possible. And then he disappeared just when the arrests started. Kingmaker was not a client. He was bait. Someone had spent months forcing me to grow the network to a size that could be effectively shut down. He used my greed against me.
On September 1, 2022, I made the hardest decision of my life: shut down Shadow Wash. I sent the same message to all the remaining coordinators: the operation is permanently terminated. Destroy all traces, change documents, disappear. Then I wiped all servers, destroyed all wallets, deleted all accounts. In two years, Shadow Wash processed more than 12 million dollars.
My share was almost 2 million. But the price was too high, half of my people were in prison, and the best analysts in the world were hunting me. On September 3rd, I left my house for the last time, knowing that Conduit was dead. Now I had to learn to live with a new name in a new world. But the hunters were already on my trail. And I had very little time left.
