EPILOGUE

DarkMarket and his ability to pay the mortgages. In fact, Subramaniam
argues that he was not responsible for the mortgage payments, as he
applied for the loans on behalf of friends who were not eligible to do
so themselves. Additionally, Subramaniam is awaiting the outcome of
his Proceeds of Crime hearing to see whether he is liable to further
forfeiture of funds. Under the terms of his Prevention of Crime Order,
he will have no unsupervised access to computers for five years
following his release from prison.

Detlef Hartmann, aka Matrix001

On 9th October 2007 the Regional Court in Stuttgart ruled that Hart-
mann should stand trial on thirteen counts of credit-card fraud. However,
the same court announced that the motion to prosecute him on a charge
of Forming a Criminal Conspiracy was rejected. With the more serious
charge dropped, Hartmann was released from Stammheim prison,
where he had spent the previous four months. The key decision
preventing his prosecution on the charge of conspiracy lay in the court's
interpretation of Germany's Basic Law, its constitution, which states
that a member of a conspiracy must feel part of a 'unified group' in
which there is presumed 'the subordination of the individual to the will
of the collective'. The judge argued that the fluid nature of the Internet
and the membership structures of DarkMarket did not meet these
criteria - a ruling that, of course, has important implications for the
development of laws relating to crime on the Internet in Germany.

In July 2008 Hartmann received a suspended sentence of twenty-
one months for the fraud charges. He has since taken up his studies
in graphic design again and has completely broken any links with the
underground.

RedBrigade

He has largely gone straight and is currently in Europe.

Max Vision, aka Max Butler, aka Iceman

On 12th February 2010 Max Vision was sentenced by a court in Pitts-
burgh to thirteen years behind bars, the longest jail term ever handed