From Computer Nerd To The Jeff Bezos Of Organized Crime

Shakespearean descent from good to evil has played a big role in many storylines recently. Let’s just take Breaking Bad’s Walter White, a mild-mannered chemistry teach turned meth lab owner, who keeps us hooked, season after season. There is something about the corruption of good men that catches our attention and draws us in. And this is exactly what recent Reply All banks on in its recent episode.

In the most recent episode, podcast co-host PJ Vogt talks to investigative reporter Evan Ratliff about The Mastermind, his new exciting book that tells a staggering true-life story of Paul Le Roux. Clocking in at slightly under one hour, the two journalists chronicle the rise and demise of Le Roux and his metamorphosis from  “a broke, nerdy computer programmer” to a blood and money-thirsty drug and arms smuggler.

“Like in a decade, [Le Roux] went from a guy who was making open-source software for this community and also going on message boards and saying, "Hey, does anyone have contract programming they need done? I can do it. I'm great. You can see my resume." He went from that to being a guy who is, you know, killing his longtime number two deputy and, you know, dumping his body in the ocean,” describes Evan Ratliff.

Interestingly, what laid the foundation for Le Roux’s criminal empire was the tech boom of the 2000s. Like Amazon's Jeff Bezos and other tech entrepreneurs of that time, Le Roux capitalized on burgeoning e-commerce opportunities, then paired it up with a growing market for prescription pain killers, and, voilà, ended up earning hundreds of millions of dollars.

The captivating story of Le Roux as told by Reply All is much more than a cliff notes version of The Mastermind book. Thanks to Evan Ratliff's vivid storytelling and PJ Vogt's conversational tone, this true crime podcast with a tech twist will grab you by the ears and entertain you all the way through.