Roux’s diplomatic passport in the Congo, strapping $100,000 in cash to their bodies to cross the border and pay for it. “Thinking back now, that was quite a risk,” he said. Le Roux paid well, $5,000 or more per mission plus all expenses paid. It was, one Bulawayo employee said, “like a cash cow walked into town.”

Over two years, Mathew watched his cousin’s business morph from a seemingly masterful hustle to something much more sinis- ter. He forwarded me transcripts of chats he’d had with Le Roux in 2008 and 2009, a virtual encyclopedia of his schemes and a rec- ord of his slow drift into violence. I paged through thousands of words about paid-off customs agents in the Congo, copper prices on the London Metal Exchange, and specific brands of logging winches. There were endless negotiations over gold (“how are they providing it, as metal or as dust? . . . one ton will not be enough”), diamonds (“we have the buyers, but they want quality, the[y] have huge money but need good quality 10ct and up”), and weapons he needed for Philippine generals (“RPG-7 two units needed with 20 rounds, 10 grenades, plastic explosives, 4 MP5’s with 2 15 clips ammo each, it is just a sample order to check if i can supply, i need it delivered in mozambique, i will take it from there to asia my- self”).

Through it all Le Roux gave off a sense of constant, manic ur- gency. “Coming under serious pressure here to get moving in congo from the government there,” he wrote. At another point, he discussed how to transfer a million dollars in cash into the Congo to purchase gold. “U need the full 1 million?” Le Roux asked impatiently. “Problem is for such huge amount i will need to send one of my own people to accompany the money . . . Security people with weapons and training.” Le Roux’s adoptive family, seeing him more often again, noticed that he spoke in a strange accent, sometimes sounding American or British. Le Roux told a relative he had affected it so that no one could pin him down to a specific country. In one chat, he asked his cousin Mathew to cre- ate an escape hatch that would allow him to disappear and never be found.