month. In another, he meticulously arranged the details of getting another $300,000 into Brazil, laundering it through a local currency- exchange business that returned him the equivalent amount of Bra- zilian reals, delivered in an actual clothing box.

For years, the federal attorneys working with Brill and Bailey had been telling them they were missing the key piece of evidence to indict him, something that would link Le Roux himself to the illegal activities they had so carefully documented. Now here he was, offering those missing links on a wiretapped phone almost daily.

It seemed like the time was right to indict Le Roux. Brill lined up Robert McGowan and Mathew Smith, along with two other Zimbabweans, who were ready to fly to the United States and tes- tify in front of a grand jury about what they knew. The agents from SOD started telling Bailey that, based on what they'd devel- oped with their own informant—Felix Klaussen, whose name re- mained a secret from Brill and Bailey—the attorneys in the Southern District were ready to indict Le Roux themselves. By the summer of 2012, Bailey was pressuring Linda Marks and her team of pros- ecutors in the Department of Consumer Protection to get their in- dictment first, based on what they had. Still, Marks held out for better evidence.

Then, in a call to his wife, Le Roux warned her to stop buying real estate. She should be renting, he said. Buying houses brought attention, and gave the authorities something to seize. When his wife resisted, Le Roux grew frustrated. "Don't you know every- thing we've been doing is illegal?" he said. "I'm not running a fucking Burger King."

The agent monitoring the wire in Brazil immediately called Brill, who stepped out of a going-away party for a colleague at a Min- neapolis restaurant as the agent read her transcript. "That's the moment we needed," she thought. They finally had enough evi- dence to indict.