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money which the super-rich fritter away on the blackjack and roulette tables. Guest residents often feel able to dispense with this cash so lightly because it’s money that, under other circumstances, they would be paying in tax to those national exchequers where they or their busi- nesses spend most of their time. As Monaco is a haven for tax evasion —and, according to the venerable Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, money laundering too—the authorities on this rocky outpost of fiscal freedom are used to not asking questions of visitors to their tiny land or the origins of their funds.

A perfect place, then, for a group of DarkMarketeers armed with twelve American Express Centurions, the fabled Black Amex cards, Olympian deities in the Age of Plastic who grant audiences by special invitation only to squillionaires from the West, Japan, Hong Kong and the Middle East. In America, the Centurion user has to pay a $5,000 joining fee and then subsequent annual fees of $2,500. But in exchange, Centurion Man receives free plane tickets, dedicated concierge services, personal shoppers and membership of elite clubs dotted discreetly around a world of which we inhabitants of Planet Drudgery have no notion.

And did we talk cash? Present your Centurion and swaddle yourself in the bucks, euros, sterling, Swiss francs or yen that the bank cashier will hand over with a hint of a smile that is reserved for someone of your value and status. A single Centurion could almost pay the ransom for a hostage captured by Somali pirates.

There is nothing unusual in a group of youngsters with too much money for their own good pitching up in Monte Carlo to spend, spend, spend with their Centurions—in this environment spoilt brats are the norm. They were determined to exploit their twelve magic tokens to the full. First a luxury hotel, then cocktails and a sumptuous meal before they hit the Casino. ‘It was a crazy party,’ one of them remem- bered dreamily, ‘2006 was the time that DarkMarket began to soar in the sky.’ By the time they left two days later the young carders had taken out €400,000 on those Black Amex. Even they admit to being shocked at how easy it was. ‘They didn’t bat an eyelid. Nobody chal- lenged us once, and you got the feeling that people did this sort of thing all the time.’

The Scandinavians were not alone in hitting the jackpot. Maksik, a notorious Ukrainian carder, was earning hundreds of thousands of

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