The Kingstons operate in a self-contained universe, completely cut off from the outside world. вЂњThis didnвЂ™t belong to you anyway.вЂќДЄs big as the heist was, it attracted almost no attention in Salt Lake. Later that afternoon, in another house across town belonging to the Order, a woman named Patty Kingston opened her closet to discover that a chest of gold coins worth as much as $5 million had vanished. By the time the teenagers sped away, they had made off with more than $80,000 in silver. He snapped the padlock on the first crate and began stuffing the silver ingots into duffel bags, lugging them back out to the waiting Honda. There, stacked on the concrete floor, were crates filled with bars of silver. In the kitchen, he opened a closet and popped a hatch in the floor that led down to a dark, musty basement. Kiki Kannibal: The Girl Who Played With Fire Then, moving quickly, the boy at the door let himself in and got to work. One of them approached the front door while the other kept a lookout. They also knew that much of the clanвЂ™s wealth was stashed inside the unassuming suburban house on the corner. They belonged to the Order and had toiled in the cult for years. The teenagers sitting in the driveway on South Bonner Circle that afternoon in 2009 knew the operation well. вЂњIf the Order doesnвЂ™t have it,вЂќ the clan teaches, вЂњwe donвЂ™t need it.вЂќ They are paid not in cash but in scrip, an arcane form of credit used by the Mormon pioneers that can only be redeemed at company stores. Boys work its coal mine and stack boxes at Standard Restaurant Supply, a massive discount store. Girls, many of them teen brides, answer phones at the OrderвЂ™s law office, bag groceries at its supermarket or tend to the clanвЂ™s many children. Children born into the clan make up much of the labor force. According to people who have left the Order, the cult exploits its 2,000 members as virtual slave labor and hides profits from tax collectors. Over 75 years, the Kingstons have amassed a fortune worth an estimated $300 million, but the operation skirts the edges of the law.

On the surface, the operation is legit: From Salt Lake, the Order controls some 100 businesses spread out over the Western states, from a casino in California to a cattle ranch in Nevada to a factory that makes lifelike dolls in Utah. The clan, known privately as the Order, runs what prosecutors believe is one of the largest organized-crime operations in Utah, overseeing its far-flung empire from a string of secret locations and backrooms.

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