Paul Le Roux

Paul Calder Le Roux (born 24 December 1972) is a former programmer, former criminal cartel boss, and informant to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Le Roux was born on 24 December 1972, at Lady Rodwell Maternity Home in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and given up for adoption.

His birth certificate gives his first name as "unknown" and makes no mention of his father.

His biological mother's identity has not been disclosed; one source claims she was a poor teenager, while another states that his maternal grandmother was married to a US senator.

Aged two months, he was adopted by a couple living in the asbestos-mining town of Mashava and given his future name, Paul Calder Le Roux.

Following political events in 1980 that ended the Rhodesian Bush War and Robert Mugabe assuming power and ending white minority rule, Le Roux's family relocated to South Africa in 1984 for better schooling opportunities.

They found a new home in the mining town of Krugersdorp, where Le Roux's father started a company managing coal-mining operations, soon bringing wealth to the family.

Shortly after, Le Roux was given his first computer in exchange for washing his father's car.

As a teenager, he was described as tall, trim and handsome, though not very social and not interested in sport.

He was obsessed with the video game Wing Commander, which he played on his gaming console connected to the family TV.

Around age 15 or 16, Le Roux was arrested for selling pornography after police searched the family home.

The family managed to keep the incident private.

Following his arrest, Le Roux became even more reclusive.

An excellent student, he refused to learn Afrikaans, mandatory in South African schools, calling it a "dead language" and eventually dropping out of school at age 16.

He enrolled in a local programming course, in which he excelled, completing the one-year course in eight weeks.

Upon returning from a family holiday trip to the US, 18-year-old Le Roux decided to leave South Africa, and departed to the UK eight months later.

Various Usenet newsgroup postings made by Le Roux are known from the second half of the 1990s.

Some of them are highly technical encryption discussions, while others can be summarized as trolling.

Le Roux would frequently post angry, sarcastic and offensive messages, including harsh verbal attacks against Australia as well as racist comments.

On various occasions, he would later express his amusement at the reactions of other users.

He found work as a programmer, and, in 1994, met his future wife, Michelle.

After six months in the US, he followed Michelle to Australia in 1995.

The couple married and Le Roux acquired Australian citizenship.

They lived in Perth and Sydney.

It is unclear whether the couple had any children – some sources mention a son, while others claim Le Roux's first child (a son) was with his second wife.

Le Roux has revealed little about his early life, and most of it was uncovered by journalist Evan Ratliff, relying mainly on an initially unnamed source close to Le Roux.

He would later name Le Roux's cousin and former employee Mathew Smith as a source.

In 1995, Le Roux appears as the owner of a business, World Away Pty.

Around 1997–1998, Le Roux began to develop E4M (Encryption for the Masses), which was first released on 18 December 1998.

The product is capable of encrypting entire disks, and optionally of plausible deniability (denying the existence of an encrypted volume).

Le Roux claimed the software had been written "from scratch".

The software was released free of charge and with source code.

In the "Politics" section of the E4M website, Le Roux published a kind of manifesto stating that governments are increasingly relying on electronic data gathering.

Citing projects such as Echelon, linked to the five nation states which would become known as the "Five Eyes" more than a decade later, he stated that encryption is the only way to preserve civil liberties.

In 1999, he created E4M, a free and open-source disk encryption software program for Microsoft Windows, and is sometimes credited for open-source TrueCrypt, which is based on E4M's code, though he denies involvement with TrueCrypt.

His parents never told him about his adoption, although various family members learned of it over the years and Le Roux himself found out in 2002.

Le Roux also had a younger sister.

Le Roux was arrested on 26 September 2012 for conspiracy to import narcotics into the United States, and agreed to cooperate with authorities in exchange for a lesser sentence and immunity to any crimes he might admit to later.

He subsequently admitted to arranging or participating in seven murders, carried out as part of an extensive illegal business empire.

Le Roux was sentenced to 25 years in prison in June 2020.