News / National
Geek to gun-runner: the super-villain with Zimbabwean links
11 Apr 2016 at 10:09hrs | Views
Cape Town - He established hothouses in lawless Somalia, protecting them with a private militia to grow opium poppies, cocaine and other narcotic substances under scientifically controlled conditions.
He went to North Korea to source industrial quantities of crystal methamphetamine - which would then be swopped for South American cocaine.
He operated a prescription medicines scam that turned over an estimated $300 million a year in the grey areas of the law.
He wrote a computer encryption programme that provided the platform for an encryption that continues to be used by Islamic jihadists and which has not been cracked by US law enforcement (see sidebar). He was linked in passing to at least seven murders and, towards the end of his career as a master criminal, operated a hits-for-hire business using former special forces soldiers and Iraq veterans as operatives.
It is not an exaggeration to say that, over the past half-decade, Zimbabwean-born South African-Australian citizen Paul Calder le Roux has popped up like a malign algorithm on news and media screens. But his odd and baleful presence has been evident only in glimpses.
Last month that began to change - after American journalist Evan Ratliff published the first of what was to be a seven-part series of articles in a "long-form" investigation into the life and crimes of Le Roux.
The project has been two years in the making and appears on the website of The Atavist Magazine, co-founded by Ratliff, who is also its chief executive officer.
Four parts have been released, with the fifth expected the week after next.
Shortly after the start of Ratliff's series, The Australian newspaper began publishing a series of articles and trawling much the same territory, although in less detail.
What has emerged, and from bits and pieces carried elsewhere, is a picture of a villain more contemporary maybe than any fiction has yet invented - a Richard Branson or Elon Musk on the dark side.
Le Roux first appeared on the radar when he was named in 2011 by the UN's Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group as constituting a threat to peace in the war-torn failed state of Somalia.
As reported by the UN, Le Roux had assembled and illegally armed a militia in the badlands of Somalia, in part as a private army for his Somali warlord partners, but also to protect hothouses where he planned to grow narcotic plants, among them opium poppies to be turned into heroin.
But, as later became apparent, the Somali adventure was far from Le Roux's first engagement on the wrong side of the law. In the first decade of the new millennium, he ran a huge prescription medicines scam in which instant prescriptions were provided by registered doctors and scheduled medicines dispatched by registered pharmacies.
As has been established from debriefings of former employees and associates by journalists and law enforcement, he was also diversifying: buying and selling black market gold and conflict diamonds, looking to secure resources contracts from assorted developing world strongmen, dealing in illegal weapons, and trafficking in narcotic drugs.
As early as 2009, a consignment of Indonesian-manufactured assault rifles and ammunition was seized by authorities in the Philippines and traced back to Le Roux.
After the captain of the boat on which the weapons were found was murdered, the case against Le Roux - like several others - fell apart.
Then, in 2012, Le Roux overreached when he entered into a drug deal with undercover agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), posing as members of a Columbian cocaine syndicate. Le Roux was to source crystal meth (tik) from North Korea and in exchange receive South American cocaine for distribution, particularly in Australia.
When he was bust, as Ratliff reports it, Le Roux, after an initial panic, shrugged, admitted it was a fair cop, and offered his services to law enforcement henceforth. This led in 2014 to an entrapment operation on Le Roux's one-time close associate, former US Army sniper Joe Hunter, in which Le Roux - acting undercover for the DEA - contracted Hunter to assemble a hit squad to take out a target who was in fact an agent of the DEA.
Other than a recent court appearance in Minnesota, Le Roux has since been off the radar.
It's a safe bet that, even when Ratliff's series ends, the story will continue.
The Le Roux timeline:
1972: Paul Calder le Roux is born in Bulawayo, in (then) Rhodesia. His birth parents are unknown and his given name is recorded as the one by which he will henceforth be known.
1984: The family moves to Krugersdorp on the West Rand, where his father works on the mines.
1993/4: Moves to London, already precociously skilled in computer programming.
1995: Relocates to Australia, following a girlfriend he met in London, whom he marries, gaining citizenship of that country.
1997: Releases Encryption for the Masses (E4M), an open-source encryption programme, which later becomes the platform for TrueCrypt.
1999 to 2000: Le Roux is divorced and moves back to Europe, marrying a Dutch wife in 2002.
2004: TrueCrypt is released anonymously. His employer, SecurStar, which has bought the rights to E4M, accuses him of "stealing" it as the platform for TrueCrypt.
Goes into the business of operating call centres in, among other countries, Israel and the Philippines.
Launches RX Ltd, the first of what becomes a complex network of companies selling prescription medicines online.
2007: Floats a scheme to lease back farm land seized by Robert Mugabeâ??s Zanu-PF from white farmers in Zimbabwe and turn it to agricultural use. Hires shady Israeli Washington-based lobbyist Ari BenMenashe (a long-range associate of the Zimbabwean president), at a cost of several million dollars, to lobby on his behalf. Hires former US special forces soldier Joe Hunter as his right-hand man in a diverse range of enterprises, including buying and selling gold and diamonds and securing concessions for forestry, mining and other resources in Africa and the Pacific Islands.
2008 to 2009: Establishes a presence in lawless Somalia. Here he sets up and arms a 200 to 300-strong militia in partnership with a local warlord, and builds greenhouses with a view to intensive cultivation of opium poppies, cannabis and coca plants.
2009: In August a shipment of Indonesian-made assault rifles is seized in the Philippines. The property of La Plata Trading, a company operated by Le Roux, they are covered by an end-user certificate for Mali. The case falls apart after the captain of the boat is murdered in a drive-by shooting in Manila.
2011: Le Roux named in a report by the UNâ??s Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group for "egregious violations" of the internationally sponsored peace report on the Somali operations.
2012: In February Le Roux gets snarled in a sting; an undercover operative of the DEA approaches him to set up a factory to manufacture crystal meth (tik) in Liberia, supposedly on behalf of a South American syndicate.
Twenty tons of ammonium nitrate along with gold and diamonds are seized by authorities in Hong Kong and Le Rouxâ??s associate Dov Shulman is arrested.
In September, cocaine shipped out of Ecuador is seized by police, acting on a tip-off, in Australia.
In the same month Le Roux is arrested in Liberia, and brought back to the US.
In October, crystal meth manufactured at Le Roux's factories in North Korea is seized in Thailand and the Philippines.
In November a second yacht loaded with cocaine and sailing for Australia from Ecuador is found grounded and abandoned on a reef in Tonga. Near the end of 2012, co-operating with the DEA, Le Roux orders his hit man Joe Hunter to assemble a new team of seasoned security operatives to protect Le Roux himself and his Colombian partners.
In January 2013, Le Roux (as part of a sting operation) contacts former associates in connection with a new shipment of crystal meth, ostensibly from North Korea.
April 2013: Le Roux develops the operation through a series of meetings with drug traffickers and shady arms dealers.
In May, Le Roux orders Hunter to assemble a squad of hit men to perform a hit on a target who had leaked information to the DEA.
In September Hunter and his team of would-be hit men are arrested and brought to the US for debriefing and indictment. Le Roux's wider syndicate is mopped up in a series of international swoops and legal actions initiated.
In January 2014, Le Roux pleads guilty in a secret trial to crimes ranging from offences against prescription drug regulations, sanctions-breaking by selling proscribed technologies to Iran, trafficking in illegal drugs, to seven cases of murder and assorted counts of bribery and fraud. It is not reported what sentence was handed down - or whether he was able to enter into some plea bargain.
Last month, he appeared to testify in a case brought against one of his former employees in Minnesota.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Evan Ratliff publishes the first of seven instalments in his series, The Mastermind, on the internet magazine website The Atavist.
The Australian newspaper likewise publishes the first of a multi-part exposé on that country's adopted son.
He went to North Korea to source industrial quantities of crystal methamphetamine - which would then be swopped for South American cocaine.
He operated a prescription medicines scam that turned over an estimated $300 million a year in the grey areas of the law.
He wrote a computer encryption programme that provided the platform for an encryption that continues to be used by Islamic jihadists and which has not been cracked by US law enforcement (see sidebar). He was linked in passing to at least seven murders and, towards the end of his career as a master criminal, operated a hits-for-hire business using former special forces soldiers and Iraq veterans as operatives.
It is not an exaggeration to say that, over the past half-decade, Zimbabwean-born South African-Australian citizen Paul Calder le Roux has popped up like a malign algorithm on news and media screens. But his odd and baleful presence has been evident only in glimpses.
Last month that began to change - after American journalist Evan Ratliff published the first of what was to be a seven-part series of articles in a "long-form" investigation into the life and crimes of Le Roux.
The project has been two years in the making and appears on the website of The Atavist Magazine, co-founded by Ratliff, who is also its chief executive officer.
Four parts have been released, with the fifth expected the week after next.
Shortly after the start of Ratliff's series, The Australian newspaper began publishing a series of articles and trawling much the same territory, although in less detail.
What has emerged, and from bits and pieces carried elsewhere, is a picture of a villain more contemporary maybe than any fiction has yet invented - a Richard Branson or Elon Musk on the dark side.
Le Roux first appeared on the radar when he was named in 2011 by the UN's Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group as constituting a threat to peace in the war-torn failed state of Somalia.
As reported by the UN, Le Roux had assembled and illegally armed a militia in the badlands of Somalia, in part as a private army for his Somali warlord partners, but also to protect hothouses where he planned to grow narcotic plants, among them opium poppies to be turned into heroin.
But, as later became apparent, the Somali adventure was far from Le Roux's first engagement on the wrong side of the law. In the first decade of the new millennium, he ran a huge prescription medicines scam in which instant prescriptions were provided by registered doctors and scheduled medicines dispatched by registered pharmacies.
As has been established from debriefings of former employees and associates by journalists and law enforcement, he was also diversifying: buying and selling black market gold and conflict diamonds, looking to secure resources contracts from assorted developing world strongmen, dealing in illegal weapons, and trafficking in narcotic drugs.
As early as 2009, a consignment of Indonesian-manufactured assault rifles and ammunition was seized by authorities in the Philippines and traced back to Le Roux.
After the captain of the boat on which the weapons were found was murdered, the case against Le Roux - like several others - fell apart.
Then, in 2012, Le Roux overreached when he entered into a drug deal with undercover agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), posing as members of a Columbian cocaine syndicate. Le Roux was to source crystal meth (tik) from North Korea and in exchange receive South American cocaine for distribution, particularly in Australia.
When he was bust, as Ratliff reports it, Le Roux, after an initial panic, shrugged, admitted it was a fair cop, and offered his services to law enforcement henceforth. This led in 2014 to an entrapment operation on Le Roux's one-time close associate, former US Army sniper Joe Hunter, in which Le Roux - acting undercover for the DEA - contracted Hunter to assemble a hit squad to take out a target who was in fact an agent of the DEA.
Other than a recent court appearance in Minnesota, Le Roux has since been off the radar.
It's a safe bet that, even when Ratliff's series ends, the story will continue.
The Le Roux timeline:
1972: Paul Calder le Roux is born in Bulawayo, in (then) Rhodesia. His birth parents are unknown and his given name is recorded as the one by which he will henceforth be known.
1984: The family moves to Krugersdorp on the West Rand, where his father works on the mines.
1993/4: Moves to London, already precociously skilled in computer programming.
1995: Relocates to Australia, following a girlfriend he met in London, whom he marries, gaining citizenship of that country.
1997: Releases Encryption for the Masses (E4M), an open-source encryption programme, which later becomes the platform for TrueCrypt.
1999 to 2000: Le Roux is divorced and moves back to Europe, marrying a Dutch wife in 2002.
2004: TrueCrypt is released anonymously. His employer, SecurStar, which has bought the rights to E4M, accuses him of "stealing" it as the platform for TrueCrypt.
Goes into the business of operating call centres in, among other countries, Israel and the Philippines.
Launches RX Ltd, the first of what becomes a complex network of companies selling prescription medicines online.
2007: Floats a scheme to lease back farm land seized by Robert Mugabeâ??s Zanu-PF from white farmers in Zimbabwe and turn it to agricultural use. Hires shady Israeli Washington-based lobbyist Ari BenMenashe (a long-range associate of the Zimbabwean president), at a cost of several million dollars, to lobby on his behalf. Hires former US special forces soldier Joe Hunter as his right-hand man in a diverse range of enterprises, including buying and selling gold and diamonds and securing concessions for forestry, mining and other resources in Africa and the Pacific Islands.
2008 to 2009: Establishes a presence in lawless Somalia. Here he sets up and arms a 200 to 300-strong militia in partnership with a local warlord, and builds greenhouses with a view to intensive cultivation of opium poppies, cannabis and coca plants.
2009: In August a shipment of Indonesian-made assault rifles is seized in the Philippines. The property of La Plata Trading, a company operated by Le Roux, they are covered by an end-user certificate for Mali. The case falls apart after the captain of the boat is murdered in a drive-by shooting in Manila.
2011: Le Roux named in a report by the UNâ??s Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group for "egregious violations" of the internationally sponsored peace report on the Somali operations.
2012: In February Le Roux gets snarled in a sting; an undercover operative of the DEA approaches him to set up a factory to manufacture crystal meth (tik) in Liberia, supposedly on behalf of a South American syndicate.
Twenty tons of ammonium nitrate along with gold and diamonds are seized by authorities in Hong Kong and Le Rouxâ??s associate Dov Shulman is arrested.
In September, cocaine shipped out of Ecuador is seized by police, acting on a tip-off, in Australia.
In the same month Le Roux is arrested in Liberia, and brought back to the US.
In October, crystal meth manufactured at Le Roux's factories in North Korea is seized in Thailand and the Philippines.
In November a second yacht loaded with cocaine and sailing for Australia from Ecuador is found grounded and abandoned on a reef in Tonga. Near the end of 2012, co-operating with the DEA, Le Roux orders his hit man Joe Hunter to assemble a new team of seasoned security operatives to protect Le Roux himself and his Colombian partners.
In January 2013, Le Roux (as part of a sting operation) contacts former associates in connection with a new shipment of crystal meth, ostensibly from North Korea.
April 2013: Le Roux develops the operation through a series of meetings with drug traffickers and shady arms dealers.
In May, Le Roux orders Hunter to assemble a squad of hit men to perform a hit on a target who had leaked information to the DEA.
In September Hunter and his team of would-be hit men are arrested and brought to the US for debriefing and indictment. Le Roux's wider syndicate is mopped up in a series of international swoops and legal actions initiated.
In January 2014, Le Roux pleads guilty in a secret trial to crimes ranging from offences against prescription drug regulations, sanctions-breaking by selling proscribed technologies to Iran, trafficking in illegal drugs, to seven cases of murder and assorted counts of bribery and fraud. It is not reported what sentence was handed down - or whether he was able to enter into some plea bargain.
Last month, he appeared to testify in a case brought against one of his former employees in Minnesota.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Evan Ratliff publishes the first of seven instalments in his series, The Mastermind, on the internet magazine website The Atavist.
The Australian newspaper likewise publishes the first of a multi-part exposé on that country's adopted son.
Source - Weekend Argus
