THE INVISIBLE MAN

When the phone call came, though, Renu was more concerned to negotiate the deep waters into which he had swum than to consider the fine print of his various scams. He decided on the spot to go underground. For three weeks he slept rough, avoiding any of the addresses that he assumed were now under some form of surveillance. When he received the tip-off about the police raid he had about £500 with him.

Life had been frenetic and risky before, but Renu had always enjoyed his slightly spook-like existence: never staying long at a single address, surreptitiously passing memory sticks to shady-looking contacts and, of course, being lauded as a master of the carding sites, without anyone knowing who he was. At first, he thought dossing down in cardboard boxes under the arches with a group of alcoholics would contribute to that mystique. But as the money ran out and his lifestyle deteriorated to the point where it was almost hand-to-mouth, Renukanth Subramaniaum – unfit, unkempt and unwell – decided that running and hiding were a dead end.

On 3rd July 2007 he walked into Wembley Park police station and gave himself up. The easy part of Operation DarkMarket was complete.