Le Roux had deals worth tens of millions of dollars in the works. He would use his own boats to pick up loads from the west coast of South America, transport the drugs across the Pacific, and sell them into Asian markets.

Now, meeting with McConnell, Le Roux tried to lure him into the growing narcotics side of the business. He talked about his connections with the cartels and his plans to use unmanned drone submarines and aerial vehicles to transport drugs. “I didn’t know if he was full of shit or not,” McConnell said, or if “he wanted to make himself bigger than life. Because when you sat down with him he always seemed more of a geek than an international gang- ster.”

Le Roux suggested McConnell return to the company in a new role. He would pay him $100,000 a month, he said, to oversee meth production at a house he owned in a tourist area of Laguna, south of Manila. McConnell delicately indicated to Le Roux that he didn’t think the work was for him. Le Roux shrugged, and the meeting ended.

McConnell realized that he’d been given an opening to leave, and now was the time to take it. He went into hiding, moving his family to a separate location, fearing that they would suffer the same fate as Dave Smith. “I lived watching my back,” McConnell said. “Because I knew I would be one of the people he would tar- get.”