he explained, the biggest targets in the Philippines were drug deal- ers who steered their profits to the militants.

When I started to ask Inspector R about the Tiu case, he imme- diately cut me off. “You know that what you are looking into, it is very dangerous?” he said. “These are very connected people. You should know that.” If we wanted the truth, he said, we would have to keep his name out of it.

I asked him why the case had stalled. “I'll be very straight: It boils down to Paul Le Roux,” he said. “He has lots of connections in the government, people that told me I have to slow down, be- cause it could put my family in danger. There were lots of police- men who would not do this case. And there were lots of senior officers who were his friends.”

The Tiu case started, he explained, with a tip in October 2010, a few weeks after Bruce Jones was murdered. “There was a Fili- pino guy who contacted my office, said that there is a Chinese guy who wants to sell guns,” he said. A raid on Tiu's apartment pro- duced fourteen automatic weapons stashed around the house and in ceiling tiles—all the exact same kind of Indonesian-made assault rifles that had been discovered during the Ufuk incident. Tiu's cell- phone was full of photos of weapons, gold bars, and Ferraris, and the officers took him into custody. That, Inspector R said, was when he first crossed paths with Le Roux.

At the station, Tiu was allowed to use his phone to call a lawyer. Then he made a second call and handed the phone to Inspector R. On the other end was a man speaking accented English, who Inspector R later surmised was Paul Le Roux. “I see you have Her- bert,” he said. “You could be a good friend. What do you want? I'll give you anything you want. You want my Mercedes-Benz? I'll give it to you. You choose.”

Inspector R said he declined, telling the man that he planned to file a case against Tiu.

“Okay, I'll send a lawyer,” Le Roux said, and hung up.

Clearly, Tiu was tied in to something much larger than a few gun sales. On his phone, the police also found calls back and forth