She Was the DEA’s Premier Crypto Detective. The Clues Led Straight to Her Own Family
Source: Wired ·
To escape the chaos of her Russian childhood, Lili Infante became an American law enforcement prodigy. She pioneered the DEA’s investigations of the dark web—never suspecting who she’d find hiding there.
From the source
It’s morning. The money mule—or lavador, as the cartels call their pet launderers—steers into a sweltering strip mall parking lot somewhere in Miami. He pulls into an open space, looks around, opens his trunk. Before long the adjacent space is occupied by a bagman, who emerges with a package full of cash. A silent greeting, or maybe a quick pleasantry, and the bag goes into the trunk before the two men roar off in opposite directions. Easy as that, and several hundred thousand dollars changes hands. Glance at your phone and you might miss it. But 50 yards away, a chic, striking young Russian woman catches it all while idling in her blacked-out Pontiac. She looks like she’s on her way to the office, but she’s already at work. She’s Special Agent Lili Infante, a rookie DEA officer in the Miami unit, on her first field surveillance lead. The mission is a setup. The bagman is an undercover agent. Arrayed in position around the strip mall are a dozen or so heavily armed federal agents,…