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The Mastermind

2016... Giving up the fight... A shroud of secrecy... Le Roux on the stand... An Iranian connection

Federal cases often take years to wend their way to a jury, and very few ever make it there. Ninety-five percent end in a guilty plea, largely because most defendants lack the wherewithal to face the power of a federal prosecution—particularly one with the kinds of resources that had been brought to bear on the likes of Paul Le Roux's collaborators. Each member of the North Korean meth group faced multiple charges of conspiring to import drugs to the United States. Hunter, Gögel, and Vamvakias were accused of graver crimes, including conspiracy to murder a federal law enforcement agent and an informant. Soborski and Filter were hit with drug charges related to the Bahamas cocaine shipment for which they'd provided surveillance.

At first, it appeared that Joseph Hunter's case might bring Le Roux into the light. Hunter's court-appointed attorney, a New York criminal defense lawyer named Marlon Kirton, planned an unconventional defense that would use the government's own prized witness against them. In January 2015, he filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the case against Hunter, alleging that