The process was so easy. And why not? Wasn't the point of pharmaceuticals to help people? Weren't the major drug companies always bombarding American consumers with ads? The pitches were everywhere - magazines, newspapers, TV, billboards, banners at ballgames. Anxious? Sleepless? Limp? Have we got a pill for you.

Douglas confirmed his order, and it zipped through cyberspace.

The order shot from the online pharmacy in Romania to a credit-card processor in the British Channel Islands, where it was approved, then e-mailed to Indian suppliers in Agra, who forwarded it to a rented home in Queens, where an Indian supervisor printed it out and handed it to another Indian woman, who climbed to the second floor, took 110 tabs of alprazolam from a cubbyhole, slid them into an envelope, labeled it, and put it into a bag for pickup by UPS, which, two days later, delivered it, up the walk by the big holly tree, to Douglas' doorstep in King of Prussia.

PERTH, AUSTRALIA

The day after the Americans arrived in Perth, they shook off jet lag and turned on the diplomatic charm.

The Australians knew little about Shackleton, except that he was a shadowy figure, a former waiter suddenly rich enough to buy himself a flat and renovate his parents' home. But, Carlos explained, Shackleton had made one foolish mistake: He'd used a Texas company, not an Australian one, to host his online pharmacy and e-mail, making it easier for FBI to get a warrant to search it.

Shackleton's e-mail provided a bonanza. It appeared to show that the brash CEO of Shack Corp. ran a global pill network that netted $5,000 a day, almost $2 million a year.

Shackleton had homes in Perth; Florence, Italy; and Frankfurt, Germany. He was toying with buying a million-dollar chateau near Paris.

Houses were nice, but Shackleton's ultimate goal was amassing $800 million. He figured he could achieve this in five years if he sold 3,000 packages of Valium a day.

"It's not easy to get rich," he wrote in an e-mail to an Internet consultant. "My goal is the upper echelon of economic independence."

What struck the Americans most about the guy, besides his spiked hair, was his arrogance. He began e-mail to employees with the words, "I decree...," and signed off, "Your Lord."

He called his three main suppliers by frat-boy nicknames - the German was "White," the Hungarian "Chubbs," and the Indian "Curry."

Curry's son lived in Philadelphia.

AGRA

An e-mail from Brij to a Texan who operated Web pharmacies in Romania and South Korea:

We can supply ketamine injectible. 10mg vials. Price is $20. Pseudoephedrine tablets. We can supply pure medicinal grade ephedrine in powder form.

Thanks, Brij.

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The mastermind behind ourprescriptionforless.com, an English as a second language teacher, replied: