72 looking for help opening a company: Paul Le Roux, “FOREIGNER NEED-
ING YOUR HELP, MAKE A QUICK $500,” misc.entrepreneurs, March 2,
2003.

72 registered the domain names: Whois history records for RXPayouts.com and
BillRx.com, obtained through DomainTools.com.

73 he incorporated RX Limited in Hong Kong: According to the Hong Kong
Companies Registry, RX Limited was first registered on July 14, 2004.

73 he moved his family … to the Philippines: Le Roux himself varied on the
exact date of his move to the Philippines. At some points he claimed to have
done so in 2005 (see USA v. Hunter, Document 580, April 5, 2018, at 546).
On his résumé, he claimed to have opened his first call center in the Philippines
in 2004.

73 In the incorporation documents: From Beit Oridan registration documents
obtained from Israeli public records, as well as later companies opened by Le
Roux: IBS, CSWW, and SCSM.

CHAPTER 8

75 The Elon Musks … of the world: Elon Musk’s history was at times eerily
similar to Le Roux’s: Raised in South Africa, he, too, had developed an obses-
sion with coding and video games in his adolescence. While Le Roux turned
to pornography to make his first money, Musk sold a computer game for his.
(See Sean O’Kane, “Play the PC Game Elon Musk Wrote as a Pre-teen,” The
Verge, June 9, 2015.)

75 They did, tracking me to New Orleans: “Writer Evan Ratliff Tried to Vanish.
Here’s What Happened,” Wired, November 2009.

75 once occupied both penthouses: Interview with anonymous call center man-
ager.

76 before hanging up abruptly: Later, I was able to persuade this manager, who
worked for Le Roux in both Israel and the Philippines, to speak to me anony-
mously at length over several interviews.

76 the high-rise offices of Blu: www.bluenergy.ph.

76 asked that I keep him anonymous: In addition to concerns about American
authorities, this call center manager, like many who worked for Le Roux, re-
mained worried about power that his former boss still held in the Philippines.

78 Patrick Donovan, a well-known figure: Donovan is one of two people whom
I have given full pseudonyms. As noted in the text, it was a condition of our
interviews, and ultimately I deemed the information he was providing about
the Manila underground and corruption worthwhile enough to include. I also
worked to check details of what he told me with other sources and documents.
In some cases, noted below, that proved impossible.

80 “That’s what your life is worth”: I found plenty of corroborating evidence for
this assertion. For example: Human Rights Watch, “Philippines: Death Squad
Linked to Hundreds of Killings,” May 20, 2014.