sories of their own invention, including a bra that doubled as a holster, called a Bosom Buddy. But aside from a few pictures on Samia’s Facebook page showing him brandishing and firing a vari- ety of firearms, they did not otherwise give the impression of being skilled assassins.

In early December, Hunter reported back to Le Roux via email that the hit team’s travel dates were set for January. “Adam will be leaving on the 8th and will be here on the 9th and the other guy will leave on the 10th and be here on the 11th. The WU”—Western Union—“of $1,625 goes to Adam Samia Roxboro, North Caro- lina USA.”

In January 2012, Samia and Stillwell arrived in Manila on sepa- rate flights, and convened at a hotel above Howzat, a sports bar in Manila’s red-light district. Hunter supplied them a dossier for their first hit: a former employee that Le Roux believed had once stolen from him. When Samia and Stillwell failed to locate her at the addresses in the dossier, they concluded she’d gone into hiding. Hunter asked Le Roux for another target. “Need someone we can find now and get done right away,” he wrote to Le Roux.

On January 17, Le Roux sent Hunter an email with a new dos- sier attached: a real estate agent named Catherine Lee.

Samia and Stillwell moved into an apartment as their new base of operations, and in late January Samia emailed Hunter an up- date mixed with a chipper plea for additional cash:

Hey Bro we are going to need some OP funds ($3000.00) we both are just about broke we have spent all are money on find- ing a place to live, the car, phone load, food, taxi’s looking for a place to live, Internet, stuff for here an more. I got them to throw a bed an ac so the boss does not have to buy them trying to save were I can!

From Le Roux, Hunter requested the necessary weapons for the job: “1 MP5 SD,” a submachine gun with a silencer, along with “1 Rifle Silenced with optics” and “1 .22 or 380 Pistol Silenced.”