Later that afternoon, as I correlated IP addresses with account logins, a second clue arrived: a payment trail. The anonymous email had been sent through a disposable account that had required a small Bitcoin transfer to a wallet that had, in turn, routed into a laundering chain. It was a sloppy route, and it left breadcrumbs—enough that the forensic team forwarded the wallet chain to a specialist who worked for one of Conley’s allies. The specialist had a nose for patterns, and he liked to find the person hiding behind the mask.
The detective’s first hit wasn’t a name at all. It was a shell company registered to a woman who once had a lawsuit against MyAlly’s when a former vendor claimed breach of contract. Then the trail linked sideways to a boutique PR firm that had a client—one of MyA
