to Chungking Mansions. At 2:35 A.M. on May 7, they raided an apartment there, capturing the other Israelis. In their possession were five bags containing 161 gold bars, plus four five-carat dia- monds worth $1.5 million and receipts from the previous days' sales.

On the wires in Rio, Le Roux could be heard working the phones trying to get what money he could out of Hong Kong. On May 8, he called Alon Berkman, telling him to transfer as much of the organization's money as possible to bank accounts in Singa- pore. Next he called his wife in the Netherlands, instructing her to fly to Hong Kong and transfer their money to the Philippines. “Four men are in position,” Le Roux told her. “I think it is safe for you to travel to Hong Kong. I suggest you get there early in the morning, around eight in the morning and transfer all the money to Manila.”

“You should have told me this before,” she said curtly. “I hope you have liquidity in your money, I told you to keep it that way,” Le Roux said. “If you can get into the country, you'll be fine. I'm the target and some of my accounts have already been hijacked. I've already lost a lot of money. Take no extra phone, no credit cards, laptops, just a phone that only has my number from here and the Philippines. Transfer all the money, take it all away.”

Two days later, she was arrested trying to enter Hong Kong on her Dutch passport, carrying a slip for a $300,000 bank transfer. She, too, was released, and slipped back out of the country.

If Brill and Bailey were worried about scaring off Le Roux with the Hong Kong tip, the surveillance in Brazil soon dispelled their fears. The GISE agents were shocked at how quickly he got over the losses. “Tens of millions of dollars blocked,” one of them mar- veled later, “and he wasn't bothered after a few minutes.” Le Roux could be heard calmly working through the logistics of bigger deals—most of them real, one of them a setup, unbeknownst to him—that would replenish his coffers even as the Hong Kong sei-