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When the filmmaker Michael Mann announced that he wasestablishing a publishing imprintseveral years ago, some were perplexed.
Why would a director known for his use of cinematic style want to become a literary mogul?
Elaine, when did you start following the story of Paul LeRoux and why?
Hes totally revolutionizing what we think of as organized crime.
And I realized: This is new, new, new.
LeRoux started out as a cybersecurity guy, brilliant.
He is of English heritage.
He comes out of this outlaw colony in Rhodesia, and he could fit right in in London.
He worked in London, Amsterdam, Seattle, Virginia, Australia.
He was working with government ministries, law firms, banks entities that needed cybersecurity.
He has said that he worked for a time at GCHQ, which is like NSA in England.
And then when he went dark, he wenttotallydark.
He went to the worst corner of the underworld.
I see what I call Middle Earth: Its a dark world.
Its spewing money and poison into the world above.
Its causing wars, its causing terrorism, its causing terrible tragedy.
Through him I can tell you what its like to be in this modern world.
Then I found out that when the DEA tracked him, LeRoux was almost invisible.
How does that work?
This is the whole book.
This is all you could handle, this is all the human brain can wrap itself around.
And two things [about the project] struck me.
One was that this guy was a revolutionary.
This is a sea change in transnational organized crime, by this genius crime lord.
But it was also the proximity the proximity to LeRoux, and the proximity to the police story.
You were so close, you were in the room.
But this isnt drama, this is real.
You were so close, [it felt like] a film that was happening.
So there was an immediate appeal to me.
Thats all I can say.
Im curious about what Michael Mann Books will encompass.
This is the first one, and its nonfiction.
Next up I believe is theHeatprequel.
These are quite different.Mann: The vision initially was novels.
The first one was gonna be aHeatprequel and sequel, rolled together into one novel by Reed Coleman.
This is really unique as a nonfiction true crime/world crime piece.
Theres a number of other projects.
Okay, this is true.
So, here you are, with a starring role in a real-life version of this kind of story.
How do movies and TV compare to the reality?Cindric: Most movies dont.
I would say in this particular case, we took aspects of movies.
How can we create an illusion based on fact?
Because [CIA officer Tony] Mendez was so out there.
He really thought outside the box.
Most of the time that doesnt work.
This case it did, because all of the illusions had a very strong factual basis.
In the book, we see the different stages these criminals go through when they get caught.
Heres a 30-year-old guy and heres a 26-, 27-year-old guy.
And one was supposed to kill the other.
Then, suddenly, the roles are reversed, everythings whirling, and the killer is crying.
But then we go back to the [Afghan-American] DEA agents life, and his time in Afghanistan.
We also see that LeRoux himself conceives of himself almost as a cinematic figure.
Whether its with a source, whether its with a bad guy, whatever it is.
Its to make that connection and understand them.
What their motivation is, what their thought process is.
Michael, that ties in to the idea of what you do as a filmmaker.
What these [DEA] guys are doing is trying to discover what he wants.
Now hes on your terms, and hes moving in a process, and you trap him.
Set him up through stings.
In drama, an actor says, Whats my characters action in a certain scene?
What does he want?
I have to choreograph what they want to collide with each other.
And sometimes what they say they want isnt really what they want.
What they really want is the subtext.
And you do that for lots of scenes and lots of acts in the whole movie.
Theres also probably a mutual understanding of process because I kind of use the inverse of police action.
They have a perpetrator whos motivated, that motivation compels him to do something.
He commits a crime, he leaves evidence, and he goes on his way.
Thats what Ill invent.
Its an insulated, very sophisticated web link that doesnt realize hes in custody.
How do you then plumb the depths of what LeRoux knows?
Who knows what else would have been going on with Iran and North Korea and everything else?
And if we dont go after them, who does?
We were expecting to work for a confession.
It was kinda funny: Well if you guys are after me, youre obviously after much bigger things.
Me and my partner were like, Nah, not really, youre kind of the prize.
And then he goes, No, nation-states, gentlemen.
Okay, thats another level.
But thats when you know you have him.
The book suggests that LeRoux is probably not the only figure whos out there.
Does he move on to governments?
And not just failed states.
LeRoux was in bed with the Iranians.
Could he buy a first-world country?
No, but he could buy influence in it.
In a first-world country, influence would probably be about it.
Mann: Do you guys love chasing them in the ungoverned places?
Milione: One-hundred percent.
The chaos works for them, but the chaos works better for us because we can blend in.
We can move, manipulate, do what we have to do.
So then you’re able to work with people who couldnt be bought.
Doesnt the LeRoux story prove that the internet itself is one of those ungoverned spaces?
Its a failed state on its own in some ways.Cindric: I agree.
You remember Silk Road, right?LeRoux was Silk Road before Silk Road was cool.
These guys were well ahead of the curve.
LeRoux was so far ahead of the curve.
He identified the ungoverned spaces.
He identified the chaos that youre talking about.
And its particularly chilling, because you see the progression of his career, and it seems so smooth.
He started out as a digital nomad, as theyre called in Silicon Valley.
He was just this fat guy coding, coding, coding.
One day, he saw these yachts and he said, I want that.
That meant he had to be a billionaire.
How am I gonna do that?
He could have gotten pretty wealthy, because he was being offered a partnership in a cybersecurity firm.
But he wanted so much more, and he was born with no conscience at all.
Has he ever felt guilty about anything?
Cindric:No, I dont think so.
Shannon: Has he ever felt sorry about anything?
Milione: I think he feels sorry about being caught.
We were talking about mercenaries.
There are quite a lot of them in and around South Africa.
The mercenaries, as I understand it, communicate by WhatsApp signal.
All these encrypted forums, theyre looking for jobs.
If youre a military-trained sniper, youre looking for gigs where you could use that skill.
Theyre all there, theyre doing their email, exchanging stuff.
The whole place is wired by intelligence services, then you see these contractors.
They have good skills, theyre not scared of stuff, and theyre looking for jobs.
Cindric: Look, the underworld out there is looking for the jobs.
Theyll know, [the shipping firm] Maersk is hiring, for example.
We need to get on that boat.
Okay, I need five guys.
Elaine, you write about the reality distortion field around LeRoux.
Which kind of goes both ways.
It affects the people around him, but it also affects him.
LeRoux called him my golden boy.
Good, well-built seafarer.
He was Navy, and he obviously wanted adrenaline and he lifted to Manila.
Ended up getting a job with LeRoux who he thought was some sort of tech mogul who had money.
I often asked Jack, Why did you stay there when you realized what he was?
He couldnt articulate it.
The moment that broke the spell was when Jack fell in love with a grown-up woman.
He told her everything, and she said, You have a decision to make.
So you oughta decide.
She was beautiful, she was smart, he decided.
Then he called the CIA.
That sounds like something out of a Michael Mann movie.Mann: An old one.
But as I read this book, I also kept thinking aboutBlackhat.
The character of LaRoux feels like the villain in that movie.Mann: Actually, yeah it does.
Well, no, this technology makes everything accessible to everybody, regardless of their intent.
It is not an additive increase of capabilities it is a quantum, quantum step.
[Think of] Amado Carrillo Fuentes in the middle of the 90s or even afterwards.
When he died, he was worth like $35 billion.
That bought the best counterintel.
It bought the best signal-interception equipment you could buy.
Whats the best way for us to compartmentalize ourselves to defeat what the DEA trying to do?
Whats the best the way to co-op Mexican military?
Nevertheless, its still an industrial enterprise farm to arms.
Someones gotta grow the coca leaves, process it, move it.
Its all discoverable, its all vulnerable.
Its locked to physical places.
Its dependent upon a fabric of loyalty to keep people in place.
Paul LeRoux blows all of that away.
Theres just the man and a bridge chair, and an empty penthouse with a laptop.
Shannon: to make it understand LeRoux, I had to dig into entrepreneurship.
The new business world in Silicon Valley.
My son, whos there, said, You gotta readThe Lean Startup.
Its a wonderful book, and what it tells you is, entrepreneurs hop like water bugs, grasshoppers.
Its whatever idea sparks their mind, and if they put it together fast, they will do it.
Look at Elon Musk, look at Jeff Bezos, look at all of these tech giants.
None of them are linear, none of them are rational.
This guy is doing that, but hes doing it in the dark world.
Tommy, you asked LeRoux what he would do if he got out, and he said what?
Because the Arabs like girls.
That was what he said.
Commodity, its all a commodity to him.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
