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HUNTING LEROUX: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire (Morrow, 2/19/19, 9780062859136, $27.99), is the story of Paul LeRoux, a tech entrepreneur-turned-arms-merchant captured while creating an “Everything Store” to serve rogue nations, warlords, insurgencies, transnational organized crime, and anyone with money. LeRoux’s business empire, spanning every continent but Antarctica, is a journey into a vast underground that most people don’t know exists and that is driving wars and terrorism. It is being made into a major motion picture by the famed writer-director-producer Michael Mann.

**Exclusive DEA photos and wiretap available.

What you should know about HUNTING LEROUX:

· HUNTING LEROUX (ON SALE 2/19) is the exclusive story of the “960 Group,” an elite group with the DEA’s Special Operations Division, takedown of LeRoux. The 960 group launched some of the most complex, coordinated and dangerous operations in DEA history, and they used unorthodox methods and undercover informants to invade LeRoux’s inner circle and bring him down.

· Paul LeRoux dealt with rogue nations—Iran and North Korea—Chinese Triads, Somali Warlords, guerillas, corrupt African and Asian officials and ex-NATO soldiers-turned-mercenary killers. His crimes included:

· Selling Iran components of nuclear warheads, including electronic parts and chemicals.

· Agreeing to sell a militant group portable surface-to-air missiles for attacks on U.S. and UN aircraft involved in opium crop eradication.

· Developing a new recipe for a high explosive for terrorist bombs, to be made from common coffee sweetener. Iranian officials asked for the recipe to share with Iran’s proxy terror cells operating in the U.S., Europe, Israel and elsewhere.

· Ordering and financing the murders of at least seven people.

· Conspiring to import tons of North Korean methamphetamine into the United States, in conjunction with members of the Chinese Triads, Outlaw motorcycle gangs and other traffickers.

· Acclaimed veteran correspondent for Time and Newsweek, and author of the New York Times bestseller Desperados, Elaine Shannon, exposes the shadowy world of international crime delivering the story of one man who diabolically revolutionized the industry—Paul LeRoux.

· Paul LeRoux—global crime’s version of the revolutionary Elon Musk—worked in anonymity, utilizing the gig economy and the tools of the Digital Age: encrypted mobile devices, satellite phones, cloud storage, wire transfers, and especially the dark web.

· For five years Elaine Shannon immersed herself in LeRoux’s shadowy world. She gained exclusive access to the agents and players, including undercover operatives who looked LeRoux in the eye on a daily basis.

· LeRoux’s criminal empire was cyber-linked by his own untraceable dark web and stretched from Southeast Asia to the Middle East to West Africa to Brazil and generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of arms, drugs, chemicals, bombs, missile technology and assassinations.

· HUNTING LEROUX is the first book to be published under Michael Mann Books, an eponymous line with William Morrow publishers from the Emmy and Oscar-winning writer, director and producer.

· HUNTING LEROUX is in development as a major motion picture from Michael Mann.

· With direct access to the DEA agents in charge of undercover operation, HUNTING LEROUX provides readers with unparalleled access to the investigation

The story of Paul LeRoux and his sprawling business conglomerate is a way of looking at the complex international underground economy that drives war and insecurity—showing how the Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurship model is transforming the underworld into a major factor in global instability and insecurity.

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