[4] Le Roux was arrested on 26 September 2012 for conspiracy to import narcotics into the United States, and agreed to cooperate with authorities in exchange for a lesser sentence and immunity to any crimes he might admit to later.

They found a new home in the mining town of Krugersdorp, where Le Roux's father started a company managing coal-mining operations, soon bringing wealth to the family.

Le Roux would frequently post angry, sarcastic and offensive messages, including harsh verbal attacks against Australia as well as racist comments.

[4][6] In the "Politics" section of the E4M website, Le Roux published a kind of manifesto stating that governments are increasingly relying on electronic data gathering.

Responding to the TrueCrypt controversy, Le Roux sent his last Usenet post, in which he wrote "the pure speculation here (often stated as fact) is damaging and in some cases libelous."

[6] Medications offered through RX Limited's web sites included:[17] Call centres were initially set up in Israel, checking orders and handling customer complaints.

[3][7][17][18] Between September 2007 and 2008, Le Roux spent $12 million to secure 99-year leases on farmland the Zimbabwean government had seized from white farmers, and to lobby Mugabe with the help of Ari Ben-Menashe, lobbyist and former Israeli intelligence officer.

[3][6][18] In his only known media statement, Le Roux told the Washington, DC, newspaper The Hill: "We want recognition that injustice was done in the past and that the land-reform program corrects that.

[4][6] Realizing the commercial success of his online pharmacy business, a legal gray area at the time, Le Roux decided to diversify and expand into illegal activities around 2007.

These included a logging business in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, procuring gold directly from African mines or guarding houses owned by Le Roux in Hong Kong.

[6][20][23] On 31 May 2016, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to murder a federal agent and import narcotics, into which he had been lured by Le Roux as part of a sting operation.

[6] Through his company Southern Ace, Le Roux supplied AK-47 assault rifles and light machine guns to Somali militias starting in April 2009, in violation of an existing arms embargo.

There he picked up a shipment of guns from a company called PT Pindad, bound for Manila-based Red White and Blue Arms Inc., and continued his journey to the Philippines.

[3] In reality, however, the guns were intended to be delivered to La Plata Trading and subsequently sold to rebels in the south of the country, including Islamist terrorist group Abu Sayyaf.

[3] In early October 2010 the Philippine National Police searched the home of Herbert Tan Tiu and discovered several Indonesian-made assault rifles, suspected to come from the Captain Ufuk.

[3] Baricuatro was arrested in the Makati neighborhood of Dasmariñas while trying to redeem a motorcycle previously confiscated from an alleged financier of a gun smuggling syndicate, British national Cristopher Leruef.

He was last seen at 11:45 in the Subic Bay area in the company of Timothy Desmond, CEO of the Ocean Adventure water park, and John Nash, its head of security.

Journalist Evan Ratliff, citing sources in law enforcement and Le Roux's organization, implies that he avoided charges through bribery and intimidation.

[5] Around 2011, Le Roux enlisted real estate broker Catherine Lee from Las Piñas, Metro Manila, to purchase vacation property in Batangas for him and paid her an advance of 50 million Philippine pesos (about $1.15 million) despite professional ethics prohibiting brokers from accepting and receiving payments for themselves but only to property owners, and that full payment only to be made to the owners upon successful title transfer.

(Le Roux signed a proffer agreement, which would give him immunity against prosecution in the US but leaves open the possibility of him being extradited to the Philippines and facing charges there).

[19] US authorities also became suspicious because of numerous calls to Somalia made from the phone number they had previously linked to Le Roux,[7] but his activities were only revealed in a 2011 UN report.

They informed authorities in Hong Kong, who searched the warehouse, finding 20 tonnes (22 short tons) of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, enough to create an explosive ten times the size of the one used in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Several employees of Le Roux's, most of them Israelis, were arrested over the following days as they tried to liquidate his assets, mostly gold bars, and attempted to move money out of the country.

[19] An associate of Le Roux approached him about a representative of a Colombian cartel that wanted to build a methamphetamine operation in Liberia, and flew to Rio de Janeiro for a meeting on 11 May 2012.

[2][6][7][19] The day after his arrival, Le Roux signed a proffer agreement, agreeing to plead guilty to these two charges in exchange for immunity against prosecution for any other crimes he might admit to.

Le Roux modified his own email service, fast-free-email.com, through which all his personal mail passed, to preserve copies of his messages (the system had previously been set up to periodically destroy them).

[18][20] In late May, Le Roux notified Hunter of an alleged informant in the organization and a DEA agent, ordering the assassination of both and offering a total of $800,000 in reward.

[2][10][19] Le Roux lured two of the call centre managers to Romania in early 2014, in one case under the pretense of arranging for the transfer of money still owed to laid-off employees.

After five witnesses in the Philippines identified them on photographs, testifying to have seen Lee in their company in the days before the murder, Adam Samia and Carl David Stillwell were arrested in their hometown and transferred to New York to be prosecuted with Joseph Hunter.

While enjoying a comparatively sheltered childhood amid the civil war in Zimbabwe, the chaotic conditions of the time, in which smuggling or operating in legal gray areas were widely considered acceptable, may have influenced his notions of right and wrong, possibly explaining why at least initially Le Roux had no moral concerns about conducting illegal business.