Loyalty Is a Cost Center

The Paul Le Roux Playbook, as told by the man himself

Every great empire starts with a free download.

Mine did. Before I moved pills, guns, gold, and North Korean meth across three continents, I was a guy writing encryption software and giving it away. People called it generous. I called it a résumé.

I have a lot of free time now, so I've decided to give back. Here are my ten rules for building a global criminal enterprise and walking away with a better deal than the henchmen under your command who worked for you. Take notes. My employees didn’t and look where they ended up.

Rule 1: Start by giving something away.

In the late 1990s I wrote E4M, free software that encrypted your entire hard drive. Some very smart people still think my code ended up inside TrueCrypt. The lesson is simple. Trust is the cheapest raw material there is. You only pay for it later, and usually someone else pays.

Rule 2: Find a market that already has customers. Call it healthcare.

Americans want painkillers. Americans also hate going to the doctor. So, in the early 2000s I built RX Limited. I had websites, call centers, and real American doctors approving prescriptions for patients they never met. Real American pharmacies filled the orders. FedEx gave me a national account.

I had millions of customers. Prosecutors figure I made at least $400 million. I prefer to say I disrupted healthcare, but I made few dollars along the way.

Rule 3: Never pay full price for a government.

Laws are just pricing. In the Philippines I paid millions in bribes to contacts in the Department of Foreign Affairs, the National Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, and the national police. Most companies call that government relations. Whatever you call it, I was an expert at it.

Rule 4: Diversify.

A smart founder never depends on one revenue stream. I added gold. I added guns. I helped develop a weapons system for Iran. I stored a load of ultra-pure meth made in North Korea. My board of directors approved every move. I was the board of directors.

Rule 5: Think big about real estate.

Some rich men buy a beach house or a Maserati. I had about 200 armed men in Somalia because I wanted to become a warlord. Go big or go home. I did eventually go home. It had bars on the windows and terrible reviews on Yelp.

Rule 6: Hire veterans.

Former soldiers show up on time, follow orders, and don't ask follow-up questions. Joseph Hunter, the man who ran my muscle, spent more than twenty years in the US Army. His men worked for a salary plus a bonus for every target.

Write that down. A salary and a bonus. It matters later.

Rule 7: Handle HR in-house.

When an employee steals from you, you could call a lawyer. I called my security team.

In 2012, two of my men, Adam Samia and Carl Stillwell, killed Catherine Lee, a real estate agent in the Philippines I believed had stolen from me. Each got $35,000. They dumped her body on a pile of garbage.

In court I admitted to arranging or taking part in seven murders. Some people call that a body count. I call it a performance review cycle, the cost of doing business.

Rule 8: Know when a market has turned.

In 2012 a Colombian cartel invited me to Liberia to talk about building a meth operation. The Colombians turned out to be the DEA. I reportedly offered the local police a bribe, and they reportedly said no. Liberia was the one government on earth I couldn't buy, which just feels unfair.

On September 26, 2012, I was arrested. Soon I was on a DEA chartered plane to New York. I had many fans excited to greet me upon my arrival.

Rule 9: Your team is your greatest asset. Liquidate it.

This is the part they don't teach in business school. The day I landed, I stopped being a CEO and became a consultant. My new client was the United States government. My product was everyone who had ever worked for me.

I lured two of my RX Limited managers to Romania to pick up a payment, because Romania is easier to extradite from than Israel. I helped the DEA set a trap for Hunter, run by fake Colombians who wanted a DEA agent killed. Remember the salary and the bonus? That's what got him.

Prosecutors said I helped bring a dozen of my former associates and mercenaries to justice. They called it cooperation. I call it leveraging my human capital. I was being a leader.

Rule 10: Check the results.

Hunter got life in prison. Samia got life. Stillwell got life.

I got 25 years, with credit for the years I'd already spent in custody turning in my staff.

In 2020 the judge said my conduct was worthy of a villain in a James Bond movie. Then she said I still deserved a significant break, because if men like me don't get deals, fewer people will cooperate.

She was right. That's the system. I didn't break it. I read the manual and learned the cheat codes.

The Playbook in One Line

Build a team that would kill for you. Then make sure they're the ones who do the time.

They called it betrayal. I call it a soft landing.

It's F*cking Satire. Paul Le Roux did not write this. The facts come from court records and the reporting listed below. The jokes are ours.

Sources

U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York. "Third Mercenary Sentenced To Life In Prison For Conspiring To Kidnap And Murder As Part Of Murder-For-Hire." https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/third-mercenary-sentenced-life-prison-conspiring-kidnap-and-murder-part-murder-hire

Ratliff, Evan. "Coder-Turned-Kingpin Paul Le Roux Gets His Comeuppance." Wired, June 2020. https://www.wired.com/story/coder-turned-kingpin-paul-le-roux-gets-his-comeuppance/

Ratliff, Evan. The Mastermind: Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal. Random House, 2019.

Ratliff, Evan. "He Got Greedy." The Mastermind, The Atavist Magazine, 2016. https://magazine.atavist.com/2016/he-got-greedy

"How Minnesota agents helped find Paul Le Roux, and how the mastermind may again find freedom." Star Tribune. https://www.startribune.com/how-minnesota-agents-helped-find-paul-le-roux-and-how-the-mastermind-may-again-find-freedom/368736611

"'Bond villain' Paul Le Roux sentenced to 25 years for massive criminal outfit." New York Post, June 12, 2020. https://nypost.com/2020/06/12/paul-le-roux-sentenced-to-25-years-for-sprawling-criminal-outfit/

"Paul Le Roux, Joseph Hunter, Rambo, the DEA, Meth and Cocaine." Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/paul-le-roux-joseph-hunter-rambo-the-dea-meth-and-cocaine/

"Paul Le Roux." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux