THE MASTERMIND 193

The pharmacies themselves had also started getting antsy. The business had become "high risk," one pharmacist in Michigan told Oz. The DEA was watching, and sometimes raiding, pharmacies in the RX Limited network. Others complained that the wholesale pharmacies supplying them were starting to get spooked by the quantities of Ultram, Soma, and Fioricet dispensed by mom-and- pop drugstores.

The brilliant model that Le Roux had created was suddenly under threat from multiple sides. His expansion plans were floun- dering; the call center in India was mismanaged and dysfunctional. Despite having more than fifty employees per site, they were pro- ducing fewer orders than the affiliates that RX Limited had once worked with.

Le Roux sent Doron Shulman, the former member of the Duv- devan who had been working for him in Hong Kong, to negotiate with drugstores directly in the United States. Shulman tried to re- assure skittish pharmacists that it was safe to keep filling prescrip- tions despite the changing laws. If he needed to, Le Roux said, he would open up his own pharmacies around the country. He or- dered Jon Wall, the Kentucky supply officer operating under the name Wayne Hatfield, to set up a wholesale pharmacy in Louis- ville in anticipation of taking over the supply chain.

Oz warned Le Roux that without official accreditation, RX Limited was in danger of losing shipping accounts at its two big- gest pharmacies, Schultz Pharmacy and Medicine Mart, both owned by an older pharmacist named Charles Schultz in Wiscon- sin. "It seems FedEx is going to close Schultz's account in less than thirty days unless they present with a proof that they are VIPPS accredited," Oz wrote in an email. In fact, FedEx was investigating all accounts connected to RX Limited—accounts that were regis- tered in the identity of a Zimbabwean named Robert McGowan.

RX Limited needed a new approach. Le Roux sent Omer Beza- lel to the United States to try to stave off disaster. In May 2012, Bezalel set up an entirely fictitious pharmacy, supposedly located at an address in a Florida strip mall, and applied for VIPPS certifi-