 Al Lucca/SemaforIn early 2015, the Australian hacker Chris Wade got a visit from the fish doctor at his aquarium-filled Florida home. The patient was Gemmy the Gem Tang, a rare saltwater species known for its striking white dots and bright yellow tail that had cost Wade $3,500. Wade was then nursing an uncomfortable secret: A 2005 criminal conviction, and years of quiet, compelled collaboration with federal law enforcement. And the fish doctor’s visit was the beginning of a strange sequence of events that would end, five years later, in a presidential pardon from Donald Trump for the legendary hacker, who now runs a cybersecurity research firm, that he believes spared him eventual deportation. “It saved my life, honestly,” he said in his slightly watered-down Australian accent. “I didn’t even think a pardon was possible.” Wade, who is now 40, has never shared his story publicly, but said he was speaking to Semafor to set the record straight after his criminal case was partially unsealed in October, inviting speculation about his past. His unlikely rise from an upbringing without electricity in rural Australia to a successful US tech entrepreneur reads like the classic American success story. People who’ve worked with him say he has a rare understanding of computers, which he’s used for a wide range of projects, like early iPhone jailbreaks, earning him accolades and interest from companies like Apple and Citrix. He’s been featured in publications and books about hacking and spoken on the main stages of the biggest cybersecurity conferences. But until recently, very few people knew that Wade was also using his skills to aid US law enforcement, first for the Secret Service and then for the FBI, after he pleaded guilty to federal hacking charges when he was 21 years old. “He was probably the smartest guy I ever met,” said former FBI special agent Christopher Tarbell, who was instrumental in the investigation of the dark web marketplace known as Silk Road. Tarbell declined to discuss Wade’s work with the FBI on cases, details of which are still confidential. Wade’s relationship with law enforcement has not been previously reported. But Tarbell said the two remain close friends, despite the fact that Wade began his journey on the other side of the law. “I just knew I could trust him very early on,” he said. When Trump pardoned Wade in 2020, at the end of his first term, there was so little information provided — in part because Wade’s criminal conviction case was still sealed by the courts — nobody could be sure it was the same Christopher Wade who was known for his computer prowess. The news came around the same time Wade’s company, Corellium, defeated Apple in a protracted legal battle, during which Wade received calls from reporters who heard the two Christopher Wades were the same. “Wade received a pardon from President Trump, who has tended to reserve his pardons for crooked Republican congresspeople, convicted felons who worked on his campaign, family members (crooks, of course), and child-killing war criminals,” John Gruber, a long time Apple blogger, wrote then. But the pardon got almost no attention until last January, when The New York Times petitioned the court to unseal Wade’s case, arguing it was in the public’s interest. Despite Wade’s objections, a federal judge ordered parts of the case unsealed in October. Earlier this month, Business Insider wrote an article about Wade, citing court records and speculating that the pardon was related to Corellium’s government contracts. The truth was more complicated, and involves a fortuitous friendship with ex-Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter. | 
