The story of Paul Le Roux – creator of TrueCrypt and drug and arms dealer
Paul Le Roux is a fairly well-known personality abroad. This programmer is considered a genius, the author of the TrueCrypt encryption program and the real Satoshi Nakamoto (who stopped communicating after Le Roux’s arrest).
There are almost no articles about him on the RuNet, but his story is quite memetic: he managed to sell drugs from the DPRK, trade weapons with Iran, Somalia and Israel, assemble his personal army and make friends with Jeffrey Epstein.
Let’s tell you in more detail who this Le Roux is.
The childhood of Paul Le Roux, an unsociable computer teenager and pornography dealer
Paul Le Roux was born in 1972 in Zimbabwe. Hoaxes associated with his biography have been appearing since birth.
The fact is that his mother immediately abandoned him, and absolutely nothing is known about his father. Some suggest that Le Roux’s mother was underage, while others suggest that his grandmother was the wife of an American senator.
Little Paul Le Roux
He was quickly adopted, but little Paul learned early that he was an adopted child. Perhaps that is why he was quite a problem child. At about age 13, he got a computer, which Paul immersed himself in. He spent 24 hours a day playing the game Wing Commander.
Wing Commander
Already at the age of 15 or 16, Paul was arrested for selling pornography, after which he became completely unsociable. Paul stopped attending classes at school, refused to learn Afrikaans, which was compulsory for all students, and then dropped out of school altogether.
After this, the young man Paul enrolled in programming courses, which he completed very quickly: it took him two months to complete the year-long program. Later, Paul left Africa and moved to the UK, where he got a job as a programmer and got married.
In the UK, Paul worked for SecurStar and worked in cyber security. He repeatedly tried to open his own business: he has a couple of attempts to launch an online casino, which could not gain popularity among players.
Le Roux’s career in IT: creation of E4M and TrueCrypt
In the 90s, Paul was an active user of Usenet – it was something of a predecessor to Internet forums. Here Paul often wrote about encryption, and sometimes also trolled other community members. For example, Paul didn’t like Australians. Why – no one knows.
Regarding encryption, Paul believed that only disk encryption could be the last bastion in protecting civil liberties from widespread surveillance of users.
In 1997, Le Roux began developing the E4M program – Encryption for the Mass. The program encrypts disks on Windows. The product was released in 1999, and in 2000 Paul founded the company SW Professionals, which was needed to monetize the product. The company employed up to 6 people.
E4M website
In 2001, Le Roux was invited to work at SecurStar, where he was supposed to create an engine for the DriveCrypt encryption program. In 2002, it was discovered that Le Roux continued to work on E4M, using the work of the DriveCrypt team, for which he was fired.
In 2004, TrueCrypt, a legendary disk encryption program, appeared. The software developers remained anonymous, but it is known that E4M is the basis of TrueCrypt. Some colleagues immediately suspected Le Roux that he was the author of the program. Since 2007, all Le Roux’s subordinates were required to encrypt data using TrueCrypt.
TrueCrypt interface
Scandal with RX Limited and sale of opioid drugs
In 2004, Le Roux opened his own company, RX Limited. It was registered in the USA, but the company was actually located in the Philippines. Here’s what Le Roux came up with: users made a request to receive medications, for which they described their symptoms and sent them to doctors. Doctors prescribed medications, after which the user could order the desired medication.
Is this legal? Not really. Moreover, Le Roux’s company often gave medicines to deceased people. In 2007, law enforcement officers became seriously interested in RX Limited.
The period of RX Limited’s operation coincided with a boom in interest in opioid drugs in the United States. From 1999 to 2016, 450 thousand people died from a medical drug overdose. It was this sad trend that allowed the RX Limited to become popular.
Among other things, the company sold:
- Fioricet – active ingredients: butalbital, acetaminophen and caffeine, for the treatment of tension headaches and migraines;
- Propecia – active ingredient: finasteride, hair loss treatment;
- Soma – active ingredient: carisoprodol, a muscle relaxant for the treatment of back problems;
- Ultram – active ingredient: tramadol, synthetic opioid, painkiller;
- Viagra’s active ingredient is sildenafil, a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration conducted a raid and independently purchased drugs from Le Roux’s company using fake passports and prescriptions. After this, it became clear that the company was operating illegally.
The DEA wiretapped Le Roux and found out that he was selling weapons, drugs and militants. Le Roux was also surrendered by his subordinates, whom the DEA had already detained on suspicion of drug trafficking.
This is what the DEA found out.
The criminal empire of Paul Le Roux: drug trafficking with the DPRK, arms sales to Iran and Somalia
Law enforcement quickly found out that Le Roux had his own army. One day in a bar, Paul met David Smith, who was a mercenary in Iraq and Sierra Leone. Smith began recruiting militants into Le Roux’s personal army to protect his business in Asia. Smith and Le Roux often used LinkedIn to recruit.
Officially, the army was needed to protect the company from raiders. In fact, it was needed for two reasons.
First, Le Roux took the cash to Hong Kong, where he exchanged it for gold and jewelry. All this had to be transported across the border and not allowed to be stolen. The money was laundered through shell companies.
Secondly, Paul’s company transported not only drugs of dubious quality, but also drugs with weapons. In particular, he began to work in Israel. In this he was helped by Ari Ben-Menash, who worked for the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate.
Le Roux passport to Congo
As for drugs, Le Roux collaborated with the DPRK, which is actively exporting drugs to the West, according to the United States. The states claim that this business brings North Korea up to $200 million a year.
Ben-Menash was a man who sold weapons to those who could not officially buy them from Israel. For example, Le Roux and Ben-Menash sold weapons to the government of Zimbabwe, for which Ben-Menash alone received $10 million. It is difficult to imagine what the transaction amount was and the volume of weapons sold.
Paul also managed to establish ties with Iran. Here he bought weapons – machine guns, mortars, rockets and tanks. Le Roux paid with chemical weapons and ammunition.
The scale of the trade was so large that it is rumored that Le Roux was supposed to be transporting Gaddafi’s gold. Paul even managed to show up in Somalia, where he transported weapons for pirates and mercenaries.
Another famous friend of Le Roux is Jeffrey Epstein, who sold dirt on American politicians who participated in sex orgies with children to MOSSAD. These orgies were organized by Epstein himself.
Le Roux was detained in 2014. Since then, nothing has been known about him. Most likely, the US authorities are keeping him under heavy guard to preserve his life: Paul has been actively cooperating with the authorities since his arrest.
