ICANN records for ABSystems to corporate filings in Israel and the United Kingdom, to important RX Limited website registra- tions. Now perhaps they could finally catch him in the flesh. The agents decided to have a closer look at McGowan. Working with the local police, they engineered what would seem like a rou- tine traffic stop. When they asked for ID, they expected to see documents with McGowan's name. But instead the man produced a Canadian passport and a Philippine driver's license. “That's how we identified Lachlan McConnell,” Bailey said.

While the DEA's gaze was drawn to Florida, another piece of the Le Roux puzzle was about to emerge from the last place they ex- pected: the headquarters of the United Nations in New York. In July 2011, the U.N. Security Council issued a three-hundred-page document with the dry-as-leaves title “Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea pursuant to Security Council reso- lution 1916.” In it, a team of investigators outlined the various causes of chaos and instability in the region, from the militant group al-Shabaab to Somali pirates. But Bailey's phone started ringing with people telling him he had to see it. In the back was a five-page section, in an appendix on the growth of foreign private security companies operating in Somalia. It was titled “Case Study: Southern Ace,” and the subject was Paul Le Roux. The U.N. investigators, led by a Frenchman named Aurélien Llorca, noted that Southern Ace had begun operating in the state of Galmudug, in central Somalia, in 2009, “presenting itself [as] ‘traders and importers of fisheries products in Hong-Kong.’” The company quickly began recruiting a local militia and arming it with AK-47s, grenade launchers, and truck-mounted antiaircraft guns. They also imported uniforms, flak jackets, and radios from the Philippines. Based on an interview with a Somali military source, Llorca determined that the company was actually owned by one “Paul Calder Le Roux also known as Bernard John Bow- lins.”