ian agents alerted the DEA, who in turn tipped off the local au- thorities, who detained Vaclavic and the boat. Back in Rio, the wires lit up, this time with Vaclavic calling Le Roux to report that he was having trouble with the Philippine au- thorities. He didn't want to say too much; he was being watched by three Coast Guard officers. “I feel like Pablo Escobar,” he said. Le Roux told him not to worry, that his men would handle every- thing “behind the scenes.” Over several more calls, Le Roux or- dered a safe at one of his properties emptied of 600,000 Philippine pesos, around $15,000. “That should be enough,” he said. Not long after, Vaclavic found himself free to go.

The wiretaps also gave the GISE agents an unexpected window into Le Roux's romantic life, which they gathered was unconven- tional, to say the least. Having left his wife in the Netherlands and traveled to Brazil with his pregnant girlfriend, he'd also arranged for “Eddie” to bring in another Filipina woman, with whom Le Roux stayed at a condo half a block down the beach from the Waterways. At first the agents assumed the second apartment, which Le Roux also owned, was merely a love nest. They dutifully noted his other rendezvous with local women, including the one listed on the Rainbow Force company registration. But after several weeks of listening to Le Roux's discussions with Zion Fadlon, his local point man, it slowly dawned on them that something more peculiar was going on. In March, they heard a call from one of the women to Fadlon, informing him that she was having cramps. “Does that mean you are pregnant?” he asked. “I'm not pregnant,” she replied. “I'm having my period.” “When will you be fertile?” “Ten days.” When she failed to become pregnant after another series of ren- dezvous with Le Roux, they heard Fadlon arranging a doctor's