The day Alexandre Cazes was arrested in Thailand, in July 2017, his relatives fell in the clouds. Many knew of his princely lifestyle, but no one suspected that this young computer genius had set up the biggest criminal supermarket in the deep internet. A documentary series broadcast on ICI Tou.tv Extra from Tuesday traces the journey of this young man from Trois-Rivières known online under the pseudonym Alpha02.
He drove gleaming sports cars, owned a house in Bangkok and a luxurious villa in the seaside resort of Phuket: Alexandre Cazes led the high life in Asia. Those close to him attributed his success to his intelligence and his flair: passionate about computers since childhood, the young man born in Trois-Rivières had apparently gotten his hands on a good quantity of bitcoins at a time when this virtual currency was not worth no luck yet.
The reality was quite different.
Alexandre Cazes had been identified by the FBI as the main architect and operator of AlphaBay, described as an Amazon of the deep web (dark web), which was used to sell drugs, stolen identities, weapons, etc. His princely lifestyle was financed by transaction fees collected from his criminal cyber-market, which he operated anonymously under the pseudonym Alpha02.
Alpha02 : le mystère Alexandre Cazes, réalisé par Frédéric Nassif, montre l’enquête menée par les journalistes Monic Néron et Simon Coutu pour faire la lumière sur le parcours et la personnalité du jeune Trifluvien exilé en Thaïlande. Il est question de son enfance dans une famille brisée, de sa passion pour les ordinateurs, de son caractère secret, de l’incrédulité de ses proches lorsqu’il a été arrêté et de leurs doutes quant à la cause réelle de sa mort, en prison à Bangkok, avant son extradition aux États-Unis.
Avoir des réponses, c’est l’une des raisons qui ont incité la mère d’Alexandre Cazes, Danielle Héroux, à participer à la série. « Il y a beaucoup de zones grises », a-t-elle dit lors d’une rencontre de presse virtuelle tenue lundi. Cinq ans après les faits, son deuil n’est pas fini. « Ce qui s’est passé, je ne le sais pas. L’appât du gain ? Le [désir de] acknowledgement ? I could not tell you, “she confessed, while specifying that her son was” anti-drug “.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY ICI TÉLÉ
Journalists Simon Coutu and Monic Néron are investigating Alpha02: the Alexandre Cazes mystery.
Parallel Lives
Years later, she still suspects that he didn’t act alone and that he may have gotten caught up in something he couldn’t get out of. And that his death may serve the interests of other criminals. She is not the only one in her entourage to doubt that her son ended his days in prison.
The two episodes The Press was able to view on Monday tend to confirm that, if he could not operate AlphaBay alone, Alexandre Cazes was the main architect and the directing head, as alleged by the FBI at the end of an international investigation also told these days on the magazine’s website Wired. However, if the American magazine specializing in technology emphasizes digital tracking, the methods used to unmask Alexandre Cazes and follow his bitcoin transactions, Frédéric Nassif’s documentary seeks to portray the boy he was and of the man he has become. Men he became, one should say, since he led several parallel lives.
“What’s interesting about the web is that we leave traces on it,” points out Simon Coutu, pointing out that even the most cautious users don’t always manage to remain anonymous. “It really allowed us to get inside his head. »
Showing off as a man with money has never been a problem for Alexandre Cazes. On the other hand, he kept his online business activities secret, his discussions on a misogynistic and homophobic masculinist platform and the life of a serial seducer he led on the fringes of his life with his Thai wife.
“The final portrait that we discovered is very dark. It was difficult to come back to Danielle [Héroux] at the end of the project with the information we had in our possession. It was not always rosy, very confrontational for a mother and a wife, says Monic Néron. This is not the story of a glorified criminal, it is the story of the fall of an individual who had enormous influence in criminal and international circles. »
Alpha02online from Tuesday on Tou.tv Extra