16

The Mercenaries

2008–2010... The M/V Ufuk blows a cover . . . A gateway to Iran . . . Expanding in Somalia . . . Shifting priorities in Galkayo . . . Klaussen wants out . . . A threat and a promise

n Manila, the confiscation of the M/V Ufuk and its captain had thrown the security side of Le Roux’s operation into disarray. Philippine customs was supposed to have been paid off. Now Le Roux wanted to know why they hadn’t been. He began doling out new bribes to try to make the court case disappear, but the incident was more than just a legal problem. Two of Le Roux’s companies, La Plata Trading and Red White & Blue Arms, had been exposed. The captain of the ship, Bruce Jones, was in the press, telling the world that he planned to snitch on the organization. Even if Le Roux’s own name had barely surfaced in the court documents, as “Johan a.k.a. John Paul Leraux,” others had. The names of two of his important deputies, Dave Smith and Nestor Del Rosario, were all over the case. Le Roux left the country for Hong Kong and then Mexico, and told the members of his security operation to keep their heads down.

Also found among the accused in the Ufuk case was an alias of an Israeli employee named Shai Reuven—aka “Michael Ross,”