tive, he pulled out his tablet to show off something. "He got all flustered and shy, and wanted me to see his 'greatest achieve- ment,'" the relative said. "It was an article written by him for some travel magazine. I read it and was astounded, it was really good." Le Roux told them he'd been submitting stories under pseudonyms for years without success. "He wanted to be a writer. It was his greatest ambition."

But something seemed to amplify Le Roux's worst impulses— greed, impatience, a sense of superiority—and in conversations with his cousin he displayed an increasingly cavalier attitude toward violence. He often claimed to be laundering money on be- half of mysterious "Brazilians," and in late 2008, when the Hahn brothers lost more than a million dollars in a gold deal, Le Roux said it was the Brazilians who would make sure it was paid back. "The gloves will come off soon on all the people there who owe them money," he wrote. The Brazilians were, he said, "pulling in people from South America who solve these problems. Many times I said MAKE SURE THAT WE DO NOT LOSE MONEY."

Mathew: its in his interest to pay you out asap

Le Roux: does he have kids?

Mathew: bud ... you make me nervous when you ask questions like that

Mathew: he is paying you out

Mathew: and quickly

Le Roux: the people who owe the money will pay it

Le Roux: all they will do is grab the guys kids until he pays

Le Roux: simple as that

Mathew told me that he'd flown to Manila alongside the Hahns back in late 2008, all of them hoping to straighten out their debts to Le Roux. The first night after he arrived, Le Roux failed to show up at a dinner meeting. Then Mathew got a call warning him that Andrew Hahn had been set up with a briefcase full of drugs