This title will be released on:
Nov 11, 2025
Description
In 2018, a powerful app for secure communications called Anom took root among organized criminals. They believed Anom allowed them to conduct business in the shadows. Except for one thing: It was secretly run by the FBI.
Backdoor access to Anom and a series of related investigations granted American, Australian, and European authorities a front-row seat to the underworld. Tens of thousands of criminals worldwide appeared in full view of the same agents they were trying to evade. International smugglers, money launderers, hitmen: a sprawling illicit global economy as efficient and interconnected as the legal one. Officers watched drug shipments and murder plots unfold, making arrests without blowing their cover.
Featuring a new epilogue with crucial updates to the case, Dark Wire reveals the true scale and stakes of this unprecedented operation through the agents and criminals who were there. This is a fly-on-the-wall thriller for the modern world, where no one can be sure who is watching.
Product Details
| Publisher | PublicAffairs |
| Publish Date | November 11, 2025 |
| Pages | 352 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Paperback / softback |
| EAN/UPC | 9781541702707 |
| Dimensions | 8.3 X 5.5 X 0.9 inches | 0.0 pounds |
About the Author
Reviews
"Even though Anom didn't triumph over crime, Dark Wire is a triumph."--Medium
"Joseph Cox has written an instant true-crime classic, the inside--very inside it turns out--story of the largest global crime sting in history, a fascinating portrait not just of the frontiers of technology but also how organized crime operates in the 21st century. Filled with stranger-than-fiction gangsters and smugglers, this book is part-Miami Vice, part-Sneakers, and part-Ocean's Eleven. Your eyebrows will be raised in amazement page after page."--Garrett Graff, New York Times-bestselling author of Watergate
"One of the best true crime thrillers I've read in years. With its tremendously flawed and persistent characters and crazy plot, it felt instantly like a television show while also illuminating the way the shadowy underworld uses encrypted and special phones."--Bradley Hope, co-author of Billion Dollar Whale and Blood and Oil
"This extraordinary story highlights the devious lengths to which law enforcement agencies will go to ensnare criminals. But it also raises the question: did they go too far?"--Financial Times
"[Cox] swings back and forth between the activities of the white hats and the black hats in the manner of a good crime thriller."--Wall Street Journal
"A tense, deep, beautifully told tale that could be a top-notch technothriller... except it's all true."--Cory Doctorow, author of The Bezzle and The Internet Con
"A vivid account of the largest law-enforcement sting operation ever."--Economist
"Cox has pulled off a breathtaking feat of reporting. He brings readers into the very rooms where the criminal underworld's most audacious conspiracies are planned and executed--and into the rooms where the cops are watching it all. His book is true to its namesake, The Wire, but more real, more raw, and played out at a staggeringly global scale."--Andy Greenberg, WIRED senior writer and author of Tracers in the Dark and Sandworm
An Economist and Financial Times Best Book of 2024
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