An Arrogant Way of Killing (2016)

In February 2012, garbage collector Jeremy Jimena found a woman’s body wrapped in a blanket beside a road in Taytay, a Philippine city known as a dumping ground for bodies. The victim was identified as Catherine Cristina Lee, a real-estate broker from Las Piñas. She had been shot beneath both eyes, but her jewelry and phone remained with her, suggesting a targeted killing rather than robbery. Years later, reporter Evan Ratliff revisits the scene and discovers that the case may connect to Paul Le Roux, a South African accused of building a vast international criminal enterprise involving drugs, weapons, and gold. Le Roux was reportedly captured by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in 2012 and then kept out of public view.

Lee’s husband asked the National Bureau of Investigation to take over, amid concerns about corruption and the Philippines’ thriving contract-killing trade. NBI agent Rizaldy Rivera investigated the murder, while local police records revealed that two Americans had been arrested in connection with it. One reportedly confessed, saying a local had provided the gun and vehicle used to dispose of Lee’s body. A handwritten note in the file concluded, “Hunter ordered.” The investigation thus begins with a seemingly isolated murder and follows clues toward an alleged criminal mastermind and the Americans linked to his operations, while raising questions about why U.S. authorities concealed Le Roux’s role.