Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire

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With a forewordby four-time Oscar nominated filmmaker Michael Mann.

The story of Paul LeRoux, the twisted-genius entrepreneur and cold-blooded killer who brought revolutionary innovation to international crime, and the exclusive inside story of how the DEAs elite, secretive 960 Group brought him down.

Paul LeRoux was born in Zimbabwe and raised in South Africa. After a first career as a pioneering cybersecurity entrepreneur, he plunged hellbent into the dark side, using his extraordinary talents to develop a disruptive new business model for transnational organized crime.Along the way he created a mercenary force of ex-U.S. and NATO sharpshooters to carry out contract murders for his own pleasure and profit. The criminal empire he built was Cartel 4.0, utilizing the gig economy and the tools of the Digital Age: encrypted mobile devices, cloud sharing and novel money-laundering techniques. LeRouxs businesses, cyber-linked by his own dark worldwide web, stretched from Southeast Asia across the Middle East and Africa to Brazil; they generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of arms, drugs, chemicals, bombs, missile technology and murder. He dealt with rogue nationsIran and North Koreaas well as the Chinese Triads, Somali pirates, Serb mafia, outlaw bikers, militants, corrupt African and Asian officials and coup-plotters.

Initially, LeRoux appeared as a ghost image on law enforcement and intelligence radar, an inexplicable presence in the middle of a variety of criminal endeavors.He was Netflix to Blockbuster, Spotify to Tower Records. A bold disruptor, his methods brought international crime into the age of innovation, making his operations barely detectable and LeRoux nearly invisible. But he gained the attention of a small band of bold, unorthodox DEA agents, whose brief was tracking down drugs-and-arms trafficking kingpins who contributed to war and global instability. The 960 Group, an element of the DEAs Special Operations Division, had launched some of the most complex, coordinated and dangerous operations in the agencys history. They used unorthodox methods and undercover informants to penetrate LeRouxs inner circle and bring him down.

For five years Elaine Shannon immersed herself in LeRouxs shadowy world. She gained exclusive access to the agents and players, including undercover operatives who looked LeRoux in the eye on a daily basis. Shannon takes us on a shocking tour of this dark frontier, going deep into the operations and the mind of a singularly visionary and frightening figureEscobar and Victor Bout along with the innovative vision of Steve Jobsrolled into one. She puts you in the room with these people and their moment-to-moment encounters, jeopardy, frustration, anger and small victories, creating a narrative with a breath-taking edge, immediacy and a stranger-than-fiction reality.

Remarkable, disturbing, and utterly engrossing, Hunting LeRoux introduces a new breed of criminal spawned by the savage, greed-exalting underside of the Age of Innovationand a new kind of true crime story. It is a look into the futurea future that is dark.

Reviews

An investigative masterpiece...fascinating look...LeRoux is...one of the most intriguing and frightening criminals Ive ever read about....A stunning work by a master investigative journalist. Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of The Cartel and The Power of the Dog The New Now of transnational crime. Elaine Shannons incisive, you-are-there account of cyber-crime syndicate godfather Paul Calder LeRoux is a scorching, hair-raising glimpse into a new kind of criminal whos altogether terrifying because hes altogether real. Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestsellingauthor of Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone

Author Bio

Elaine Shannon, acclaimed former correspondent for Time and Newsweek, is the author of the New York Times bestseller Desperados, which was the basis for Michael Mann's Emmy Awardwinning NBC miniseries Drug Wars. She is also the author of No Heroes: Inside the FBI's Secret Counter-Terror Force, and The Spy Next Door: The Extraordinary Secret Life of Robert Philip Hanssen. She lives in Washington, D.C.