Thread by @sisu_sanity

Criminal mastermind Paul Le Roux was sentenced to 25 years.

His syndicate was deep into int'l cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking, gold and timber smuggling, weapons dealing, and more.

1/
Coder-Turned-Kingpin Paul Le Roux Gets His Comeuppance
wired.com/story/coder-tu…

Le Roux secretly began cooperating with US law enforcement (DEA and federal prosecutors) after he was first arrested in Liberia in September *of 2012*.

2/
Meth, Murder, and the DEA's Mysterious Deal With the 'Most Dangerous Man in the World' vice.com/en_us/article/…

"Le Roux, who cooperated with prosecutors following his 2012 arrest, faced sentencing Friday on a slew of charges, including drug trafficking, hacking and money laundering."

3/
'Bond villain' Paul Le Roux sentenced to 25 years for massive criminal outfit nypost.com/2020/06/12/pau…

"Along the way, he contributed to America's painkiller epidemic and got involved with North Korean methamphetamine manufacturing, Somali pirates, and murder-for-hire."

4/
Meth, Murder, and Pirates: The Coder Who Became a Crime Boss wired.com/story/mastermi…

"In the 1990s, the Zimbabwe-born South African [Le Roux] created a free, open-source encryption software that was later used to write better-known and more successful programs."

5/
The Computer Programmer Who Ran a Global Drug Trafficking Empire smithsonianmag.com/history/comput…

"His arrest was kept a secret for several years. He only recently appeared in court, during Hunter’s trial last year, where he confessed to 5 murders, selling missile technology to Iran & trafficking meth out of North Korea with intent to sell in NY."

6/
nypost.com/2019/02/16/how…

"In September 2012, after a six-year investigation into the online pharmacy world that eventually led to Le Roux, the U.S. DEA lured him to Liberia."

7/
Prologue: Global Criminal Kingpin, Long Held in Secret U.S. Custody, Makes First Court Appearance magazine.atavist.com/global-crimina…

"But judging from the brief flurry of stories about Le Roux and the fragmented contents of the case files, he seemed to have a criminal appetite more voracious than [El Chapo or Viktor Bout]."

8/
"An Arrogant Way of Killing," Episode 1 of "The Mastermind
magazine.atavist.com/an-arrogant-wa…

"In this case, the larger organization was a network of websites that went by names like RX Limited and Alpha-Net [🤔], and sold prescription drugs to American consumers over the Internet."

9/
"I'm Your Boss Now," Episode 2 of "The Mastermind"
magazine.atavist.com/im-your-boss-n…

April 2018:

"A former U.S. Army sniper and 2 other ex-American soldiers were convicted Wednesday in the contract killing of a real estate agent in the Philippines for an international crime boss who thought the woman had cheated him on a land deal."

10/
armytimes.com/news/your-army…

"Hunter and his cohorts turned from serving their countries as soldiers to becoming mercenaries for hire, plotting to kill a DEA agent and informant and trafficking in massive quantities of cocaine," the attorney [Preet Bharara] said.

11/
cnn.com/2019/03/07/asi…

"The downfall of Paul Calder Le Roux began with a routine act of police work — an undercover drug purchase by Minnesota DEA agents investigating illegal prescription websites."

12/
How Minnesota agents helped find Paul Le Roux
startribune.com/how-minnesota-…

"Just as Le Roux’s story seemed to fit with Satoshi’s arrival, and with his methods, so too could it explain the mystery of his departure. Satoshi disappeared from the Bitcoin forums... shortly after WikiLeaks began accepting donation in Bitcoin."

13/
wired.com/story/was-bitc…

🔥🧐
"Le Roux claimed he acquired related expertise working for the U.K. signals intelligence agency known as Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)."

14/
Drug Dealer Just Sentenced to 25 Years Hoped to Build a Better Bitcoin Miner coindesk.com/drug-dealer-ju…

“These optimizations have allowed me to create an ASIC chip design, and therefore ASIC miners, that are an order of magnitude faster at Bitcoin mining than any current design,” Le Roux wrote.

“To this end I plan to put my knowledge and skills to a better, and legal use.”

15/

16/

Revealed, the most successful criminal mastermind you've never heard of: The real-life Bond villain behind a cocaine and gun empire spanning four continents who's now turned super-snitch dailym.ai/173wCRc