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    Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire
    Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire
    Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire
    Audiobook11 hours

    Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire

    Written by Elaine Shannon

    Narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    With an introduction by four-time Oscar nominated filmmaker Michael Mann.

    The story of Paul LeRoux, the twisted genius entrepreneur and cold-blooded killer who brought revolutionary innovation to international crime, and the exclusive inside story of how the DEA’s elite, secretive 960 Group brought him down.

    Paul LeRoux was born in Zimbabwe and raised in South Africa. After a first career as a pioneering cybersecurity entrepreneur, he plunged hellbent into the dark side, using his extraordinary talents to develop a disruptive new business model for transnational organized crime. Along the way he created a mercenary force of ex-U.S. and NATO sharpshooters to carry out contract murders for his own pleasure and profit. The criminal empire he built was Cartel 4.0, utilizing the gig economy and the tools of the Digital Age: encrypted mobile devices, cloud sharing and novel money-laundering techniques. LeRoux’s businesses, cyber-linked by his own dark worldwide web, stretched from Southeast Asia across the Middle East and Africa to Brazil; they generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of arms, drugs, chemicals, bombs, missile technology and murder. He dealt with rogue nations—Iran and North Korea—as well as the Chinese Triads, Somali pirates, Serb mafia, outlaw bikers, militants, corrupt African and Asian officials and coup-plotters.

    Initially, LeRoux appeared as a ghost image on law enforcement and intelligence radar, an inexplicable presence in the middle of a variety of criminal endeavors. He was Netflix to Blockbuster, Spotify to Tower Records. A bold disruptor, his methods brought international crime into the age of innovation, making his operations barely detectable and LeRoux nearly invisible. But he gained the attention of a small band of bold, unorthodox DEA agents, whose brief was tracking down drugs-and-arms trafficking kingpins who contributed to war and global instability. The 960 Group, an element of the DEA’s Special Operations Division, had launched some of the most complex, coordinated and dangerous operations in the agency’s history. They used unorthodox methods and undercover informants to penetrate LeRoux’s inner circle and bring him down.

    For five years Elaine Shannon immersed herself in LeRoux’s shadowy world. She gained exclusive access to the agents and players, including undercover operatives who looked LeRoux in the eye on a daily basis. Shannon takes us on a shocking tour of this dark frontier, going deep into the operations and the mind of a singularly visionary and frightening figure—Escobar and Victor Bout and Jeff Bezos rolled into one. She puts you in the room with these people and their moment-to-moment encounters, jeopardy, frustration, anger and small victories, creating a narrative with a breath-taking edge, immediacy and a stranger-than-fiction reality.

    Remarkable, disturbing, and utterly engrossing, Hunting LeRoux introduces a new breed of criminal spawned by the savage, greed-exalting underside of the Age of Innovation—and a new kind of true crime story. It is a look into the future—a future that is dark.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateFeb 19, 2019
    ISBN9780062940896
    Author

    Elaine Shannon

    Elaine Shannon, acclaimed veteran correspondent for Time and Newsweek, is the author of the New York Times bestseller Desperados: Latin Drug Lords, U.S. Lawmen, and the War America Can’t Win, which served as the basis for Michael Mann’s Emmy-winning NBC miniseries Drug Wars: The Camarena Story, and its Emmy-nominated sequel, Drug Wars: The Cocaine Cartel. Shannon is a highly respected investigative reporter, trusted by law enforcement and intelligence organizations, and an expert on terrorism, organized crime, and espionage. She is the author of No Heroes: Inside the FBI’s Secret Counter-Terror Force and The Spy Next Door: The Extraordinary Secret Life of Robert Philip Hanssen. She lives in Washington, D.C. You can contact her at Elaine@elaine-shannon.com.

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    Reviews for Hunting LeRoux

    4.5/5

    26 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      An Interesting and reasonably well researched book worth the read. Worth more than 3• but less than 4• generously given.

      The problem is that the author never had direct access to her subject. A real shame, as this would undoubtedly have affected the dynamics of the book and brought us closer to solving the mystery of this fascinating character study.

      As it stands, we are left with a sort of black box, a tunnel view of what seems to be an enigmatic character. Never quite getting a solid glimpse of LeRoux, we are left dependent on the author's relatively limited imagination for unsatisfying interpretations of motives and simplistic hearsay concerning actions.

      We are thus lead to the predictable and uselessly trite conclusion by the author that LeRoux was a dangerous, manipulative psychopathic personality that could have been a real bad-boy, if given enough time and lack of supervision.
    • 5/5
      This is better than The Mastermind about the same devious character, but it is layered with an explosion of names that is initially bewildering. I kept careful notes to keep the characters straight and felt I could sift through the characters of minor consequence. What makes this book better is it provides commentary on Paul's thinking from the professional agents that interviewed him.They compare him to Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs and suspect he has hidden assets and will never be satisfied even when he is released to live a quiet life somewhere. They also think he will be in fear of his life for becoming a state's witness to bring down Hunter and his underlings. Leroux had deals going with Iran, North Korea and Somalia. It made me realize that the ocean is a huge ungoverned wild west and people like Leroux use it to make clandestine deals that could destroy the world or wreak havoc. The Mastermind came with a brief list of the major characters. Something like that would have been welcome here too.
    • 5/5
      Compelling story. Great writing and terrific narration by Dennis Boutsikaris
    • 4/5
      Elaine Shannon writes a tense account of the rise of a new kind of criminal – one the leverages technology, visceral violence, always looking for new opportunities. Hunting LeRoux documents the Drug Enforcement Agency’s investigation into Paul LeRoux, a reclusive genius whose criminal empire spans drugs and arms smuggling worldwide. His ambition knew no bounds – he maintained a mercenary squad dedicated to making people disappear. He worked on developing missile guidance systems for Iran. Elaine compares him to an evil version of Elon Musk – a shark always looking for a new money-making opportunity unconstrained by morality. Elaine Shannon also portrays the DEA investigators that hunted LeRoux and highlights both their bravery and vulnerabilities. The story is compelling but lacks the depth to recommend without reservations.

      The Good – Elaine Shannon succeeds in portraying LeRoux as charismatic (when he wants to be) but an amoral monster. She had great access to the DEA and provides compelling portrayals of the individuals in the 960 group – the unit that investigates DEA’s hardest cases.

      The Bad - While the book does a good job detailing the investigation and is an easy read, I would have appreciated some more depth on how LeRoux built and maintained his empire as well as the investigation. More problematic, Elaine Shannon seems to have based the book on DEA and court documents – she clearly has great sympathy for their agents but that makes the book seem like an extended press release.