A swashbuckling international criminal mastermind who was involved in arming a militia in Somalia, selling arms to Iranian warlords, trading crystal meth with North Korean drug dealers, conspiring to use mercenaries to overthrow the Seychelles government and running an international hit squad has been linked to a plan by the late Debswana Managing Director Louis Nchindo to assassinate Court of Appeal Judge President Ian Kirby.
A police report filed by Justice Kirby with the Botswana police Service has revealed for the first time, details of the alleged planned hit against Judge President of the Court of Appeal.In the police statement made on 21st February 2019, a copy of which has been passed to the Sunday Standard, Justice Kirby stated how former President Lt Gen Ian Khama told him that the late Louis Nchindo’s sidekick, Malcolm X had informed him that “R 2 000 000 had been transferred by Louis from his HSBC Bank in London to pay for the earlier attempt on my life in Lobatse and also (presumably) for what was done to Puso.” Khama claimed that Justice Kirby’s son Boipuso “Puso” Kirby was murdered by Nchindo’s hitmen.
In his police statement Justice Kirby states that, “I reminded him that evidence uncovered by the South African Police at that time indicated that in fact P 1 000 000 had been transferred from Louis account in London to Johannesburg in two transfers of R 500 000 each.In an additional statement made on Monday 25th February 2019, Justice Kirby stated that, “he (Khama) said the Afrikaner who was involved in an attempt on my life was in prison. (I doubt if that is correct as I was informed that long ago that he (Le Roux) committed suicide.”
It was reported in May 2009 that a key witness in the alleged plot to assassinate Justice Kirby had mysteriously committed suicide, while the other suspect has also skipped South Africa, allegedly headed for Europe.
An independent investigation by the Sunday Standard suggests that Malcom X’s report that Le Roux, the Afrikaner who masterminded the failed hit on Justice Kirby is currently in an American prison is probably true.The South African Afrikaner that Malcolm X is referring to, Paul Calder Le Roux is awaiting sentencing in the US after agreeing to cooperate with authorities in exchange for a lesser sentence and immunity to his most serious crimes.With his business deals going wrong, Le Roux is understood to have around 2008 considered faking his own death certificate and disappearing into a new identity.
He was subsequently arrested in Monrovia, Liberia, on 25th September 2014 in a joint sting operation by the American DEA agents and Liberian police. Dubbed the ‘Jeff Bezos of the dark web’ for his dealings in drugs, chemicals, cash, gold and military-grade weapons, Le Roux is reported to be one of the most prolific and dangerous cyber criminals in history.Working from behind his computer, Le Roux launched a pharmaceutical company illegally dealing painkillers in 2004, before investing the hundreds of millions he earned into a web of criminal activity.
Using former US soldiers and South African hit men as criminal pawns, his dodgy enterprises included contract killings, laundering gold through Ghana, trafficking meth from North Korea and bribing Somali pirates. His vision was to create an online platform for every vice from drugs and weapons to hitmen-for-hire.Le Roux trial has also pulled back the veil on the covert world of mercenary work. He testified that he paid his guns-for-hire $5,000 to $10,000 a month, plus expenses. He said he paid an extra $25,000 for “bonus work,” which he described as “acts of killing and any other acts of violence.”
The American federal agents say Le Roux presided over “an international murder-for-hire syndicate that sounds like something straight out of a Hollywood crime thriller.”
Le Roux’s shocking story has also come to light in a biography, The Mastermind: Drugs. Empire. Murder. The biography by investigative journalist Evan Ratcliff reveals the true horror Le Roux orchestrated from behind a screen.
Between an exhaustive five-year DEA investigation into Le Roux and the brave reporting of crimes suspected to be related to Le Roux on the ground in the Philippines, South Africa, and Brazil, Ratliff was able to build up a jigsaw puzzle of his organised crime cartel.
In an online chat, sent to Ratcliff by one of his former employees, Le Roux discussed disappearing into a new identity as early as 2008. “I need a dead body certified as me,” Le Roux said.
