The strange story of Alexandre Cazes
Alexandre Cazes, the alleged co-founder and operator of Alphabay, committed suicide in a Thai jail cell in July of last year.
The official narrative is Cazes made millions as a drug kingpin and led a lifestyle befitting someone in his position. He lived like a king in Thailand, purchasing a Lamborghini Aventador and a Porsche Panamera, and acquiring citizenship by investment in a number of tax havens.
This despite the fact he used a highly transparent front to launder the proceeds of his criminal drug emporium in the form of EBX Technologies, a web design company with no discernible business activity (the website hadn't been updated for well over a year at the time of his death) and a number of equally conspicuous shell companies.
How could he have laundered thousands of BTC through various banks in Thailand and never raised any red flags? Banks around the world are notoriously anti-Bitcoin, so how on earth was he allowed to move so much money without having all his accounts frozen for money laundering?
It doesn't make any sense at all that he was allowed to operate with impunity for close to three years, or that he'd even contemplate such a course of action.
This leads me to conclude Cazes was most likely a patsy with little or no involvement with Alphabay. You'd have to view Thailand as the worst kind of banana republic to think otherwise.
What do you guys think? Was Alexandre Cazes a criminal mastermind who skirted AML laws (possibly through bribes), or just another useful idiot used by the US government to perpetuate the war on drugs and the illusory threat of the money laundering boogeyman?
He was a foreigner living in Thailand, i.e., someone lacking the social equity to allow him to bribe police officers, banksters and politicians with any degree of reliability.
Having read his entire post history on the RooshV forums, Cazes struck me as a very analytical young man. It's hard to reconcile his image as a rational, calculating businessman, and the idea that he embarked in a massive criminal enterprise under the assumption he'd be able find just the right people to bribe.
That seems rather implausible to me, to say the least.