And none of it would have been possible without Jeff Rabb, my business partner—along with Nick Thompson—and the real mas- termind behind Atavist and The Atavist Magazine.

Any close reader will recognize the crucial role played by Au- rora Almendral, an exceptional reporter in her own right, in my research in the Philippines. Without her, the book would be a shadow of its final self. I also benefited from the keen reporting and translation assistance of two other journalists abroad: Daniel Estrin in Israel and Luiza Miguez in Brazil. (Thanks as well to Daniela Pinheiro in Rio.) In the United States, Natalie Lampert and Oliver Conroy provided invaluable research assistance along the way. I was lucky to work with exceptional fact-checkers: Queen Arsem-O'Malley and Riley Blanton on the original Atavist series, and Ben Phelan on the book manuscript. All of them saved me from a pile of embarrassing errors, and any that remain in the book are my own.

During my reporting I again and again encountered the generos- ity of other journalists, in situations when it would have been easy to be cutthroat and competitive. Damon Tabor shared with me the voluminous research he had conducted on Le Roux. Robyn Lee Kriel provided helpful background on Bulawayo and Zimbabwe. Patrick Radden Keefe advised me on how to approach this kind of work. Johnny Dwyer pointed me to details on Dave Smith that he had uncovered for his book on Chucky Taylor and Liberia, Amer- ican Warlord. Thanks as well to the creators of Sqoop (sqoop .com), a service that enabled me to track a maddening number of federal case dockets.

My reporting owes a debt to—and I hope respectfully builds upon—great work done on Le Roux by other journalists. Most importantly, Alan Feuer at The New York Times broke critical information—no less than Le Roux's name—and provided me in- sights on how to chase the rest of the story down. His colleague Ben Weiser did the first reporting on the Joseph Hunter arrest. Julian Rademeyer in South Africa carried out original and danger-