sixty Filipino representatives sitting side by side on headsets, hustling to earn a $2 or $3 commission on each drug sale. On the wall was a large map of the United States, individual states labeled with the drugs that could be shipped to and from each.

Most employees rarely saw or heard from Le Roux. Ben-Dor said that in nearly two years working for him, he saw his boss only a handful of times—and remembered the first time clearly. “He called me up and asked me to just come on over to his condo,” Ben-Dor said. There he found Le Roux sitting alone at a desk in a massive, largely empty space, flanked by racks of servers. Le Roux dispensed with greetings.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Good,” Ben-Dor told him. He began rattling off numbers, eager to prove that the call centers were performing well.

Le Roux cut him off. “Well, let me know if you need anything,” he said.

Ben-Dor’s first meeting with the boss who had moved him to the Philippines, housed him, and placed him in charge of a thousand people had lasted five minutes. “You called me all the way over here to tell that?” he said.

“Yeah,” Le Roux told him. “I just wanted to meet you.”

Le Roux continued to stay away from Israel, but occasionally requested to speak face-to-face with Oz and Berkman on important topics. In October 2008, he ordered the pair back to Manila for a second meeting. This time he informed them that he would be expanding his operations in Israel. The business was growing faster than his Philippine centers could handle, and he wanted Oz and Berkman to open a new call center in Tel Aviv. “It’s time to take responsibility,” Le Roux told them, before sending them home to begin hiring immediately. “Money,” he said, “is not an issue.”