extradite Paul Le Roux, it will probably come from the NBI,” he said. “The problem is, do you think the U.S. government will allow that? They will object to that, because Le Roux is a prize catch.”

Rivera had transferred out of the Death Investigation Division and moved downstairs to Environmental Crimes. When Aurora Almendral and I showed up for our lunchtime appointment, we found five guys in the division’s office eating pizza and watching daytime talk shows on a small television. While we waited, I no- ticed a printed-out sign in English, taped to a nearby wall:

DO NOT ACCEPT A BRIBE, FOR A BRIBE BLINDS THOSE WHO SEE AND TWISTS THE WORDS OF THE RIGHTEOUS

When Rivera finally arrived, in a purple button-down and jeans, I wondered if he’d been exiled to a bureau backwater. But he told me he preferred Environmental Crimes to his old gig. “There’s so much pressure in the high-profile cases at DID,” he said.

Even with the transfer, he’d continued helping the DEA with the Catherine Lee murder case, despite the fact that they hadn’t re- ciprocated with any documents that would help Rivera build an indictment in the Philippines. Together, they’d made progress gathering more evidence against Adam Samia and David Still- well, the North Carolina men facing trial in New York for Lee’s killing.

But he had bigger news to relay. “We recovered the vehicle,” he told me.

“You did?”

“Yeah, it is here. It is in my custody.”

In February 2017, Le Roux had finally provided the DEA the whereabouts of the Toyota Innova van. It was sitting in a garage, at a house he still owned in the gated suburb of Las Piñas. The authorities, he said, could pick it up from the house’s caretaker. Two DEA agents had flown to Manila and driven out to retrieve it. The agents wanted to deliver the van to the U.S. embassy. “But I