Hunting LeRoux, Elaine Shannon
Hunting LeRoux, Elaine Shannon
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Hunting LeRoux
The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire

Author: Elaine Shannon

Narrator: Dennis Boutsikaris

Unabridged: 11 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 02/19/2019


Synopsis

With an introduction by 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 DEA’s 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. LeRoux’s 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 nations—Iran and North Korea—as 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 DEA’s Special Operations Division, had launched some of the most complex, coordinated and dangerous operations in the agency’s history. They used unorthodox methods and undercover informants to penetrate LeRoux’s inner circle and bring him down. For five years Elaine Shannon immersed herself in LeRoux’s 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 figure—Escobar and Victor Bout and Jeff Bezos rolled 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 Innovation—and a new kind of true crime story. It is a look into the future—a future that is dark.

About Elaine Shannon

Elaine Shannon, acclaimed veteran correspondent for Time and Newsweek, is the author of the New York Times bestseller Desperados: Latin Drug Lords, U.S. Lawmen, and the War America Can’t Win, which served as the basis for Michael Mann’s Emmy-winning NBC miniseries Drug Wars: The Camarena Story, and its Emmy-nominated sequel, Drug Wars: The Cocaine Cartel. Shannon is a highly respected investigative reporter, trusted by law enforcement and intelligence organizations, and an expert on terrorism, organized crime, and espionage. She is 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. You can contact her at Elaine@elaine-shannon.com.

About Dennis Boutsikaris

Dennis Boutsikaris received an Obie Award for his performance in Sight Unseen and was Mozart in Amadeus on Broadway. His films include *batteries not included, The Dream Team, and Boys On The Side. His TV work includes And Then There Was One, The Last Don and Chasing The Dragon; he was most recently the D.A. of NY in Sidney Lumet's 100 Centre Street.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mishehu

Very few notes. Amber waves of purple prose. Reams of dialogue (both internal and external), about which one must ask "how do you know?". And hook-line-stinker acceptance of what I can only assume was one of the bad-guy's self-serving "I never wanted anything to do with all this criminal stuff" acco......more

The story of how the DEA captured Paul Calder LeRoux and five of his hired mercenaries is fascinating. Unfortunately, this book botched it despite the author's access to the agents who set up the stings that delivered all six to the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. Apparently, director Michael Mann......more

The creepy underworld of international organized crime is too bizarre to be fodder for films. A brilliant psychopath running wild with billions of dollars at his disposal and nothing in the way of a moral compass. I hope someone does the world a huge favor and kills this creep while he is in prison.......more

Goodreads review by Josh

So what if Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos used his business acumen and drive for innovation to be a 21st story Bond villain? That's pretty much what you get with Leroux, a South African/Australian cryptographer who used is his skills to establish the Amazon for guns and arms. Really cool story. As good as a......more