tion. On August 9, 2011, they laughed in a wiretapped phone call about the absurdity of their own efforts:

MCCONNELL: Wow, this has been a fucked-up couple of weeks, you know?

BEZALEL: We finally got word from the uh, VIPPS Certification... they tell us... you have seventy-two hours to comply with the list of... discrepancies. If you see the list of discrepancies you're gonna say holy shit.

MCCONNELL: Oh really, wow...

BEZALEL: Yeah, I'm lookin' at one of the lists and it's unreal. I mean, starting with [laughs] starting with uh, where the hell is this, let's see... you've got "you're shipping controlled medications, you are shipping controlled medications to, to states that require you to not ship controlled medications [laughs], website offers"

MCCONNELL: [laughs]

BEZALEL: "ship prescription drugs to states uh, in which it [is] not licensed to do so as indicated by the shipping options available on the order page. Website dispenses prescription drug products without requiring a valid prescription..."

MCCONNELL: [laughs]

As McConnell traveled back and forth between Manila and Miami over the next few months, the psychological weight of Le Roux's oblique threats began to press down on him. He believed that Le Roux had his family under surveillance, and he spent his time back home racked with anxiety. In Florida, he was now in- volved in something he'd worked hard to avoid: potentially illegal acts in a country where he knew the consequences could be severe. At one point, he was pulled over by local police, who checked his IDs and let him go. He confided to Bezalel that he thought he was losing his mind.

That October, he finally told Le Roux he was having a mental breakdown and needed time off. Le Roux, incredibly, granted his