uct of a thriving security business. He had often provided free fire- arms and SWAT team training for the Philippine police and military, and soon discovered that he had a growing Rolodex of powerful figures willing to return the favor. “We’re talking about people who need help, and I know people who know people,” he said. “A container full of wine gets stuck in customs, could I help someone out. I make a call, boom, it’s out, he owes us.”

Expats operating in the Philippines’ thriving call center indus- try often availed themselves of Donovan’s services, he told me. At the industry’s fringes were “boiler rooms”—call centers hawking questionable investments or full-on scams to customers in the United States and elsewhere. Such outfits were happy to pay a little pro- tection money to avoid raids by the Philippine police, who selec- tively enforced what few regulations were on the books. “It’s the kind of country where you’ve got to pay to play,” Donovan said. “It’s their country, you’re here. That’s how they make their money, when they come and raid you.”

It all paid off well enough for Donovan, who also invested in several bars in the red-light district. One evening he met a fellow Irishman named Dave Smith in one of them. “I could tell by the way he stood that he was military. I could tell by his accent he was Northern Ireland,” Donovan said. They became friendly, and when Smith got into a jam—the wealthy man he was protecting turned out to be a scam artist and fled the country—Donovan hired him. “I said I can’t pay you much, but you know, as we grow, I’ll take care of you.”

Sometime in the mid-2000s, Donovan said—he couldn’t re- member precisely when—an Israeli acquaintance from the boiler room business told him that a South African online businessman named Paul Le Roux had just relocated to the Philippines. He was looking for the kind of protection Donovan could provide. They arranged to meet at the Makati Shangri-La hotel, where Le Roux was staying. “The first day he was supposed to meet me, he put it off because he was looking at condominiums,” Donovan said.