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For Kobus Steyn, the job was clear enough: put together a team to locate and surveil a vice-admiral in the Thai navy and then, when the opportunity arose, kill him.

Steyn, a gruff 60-year-old with a slightly greying full head of hair, tired deep-set eyes and a square jaw, had spent more than three decades in clandestine security work. In his native South Africa, the former policeman had been involved, by his own account, in some shady operations as the country transitioned from apartheid. Later, he’d set up a private firm that investigated everything from failed marriages to corporate fraud. He even taught security management at the University of Johannesburg for a while before deciding that the land of his birth no longer valued his expertise.

Steyn had settled in the tiny, oil-rich monarchy of Brunei, in south-east Asia, where his wife found a job teaching English to the children of the local elite. While the work during his policing career had been highly physical, Steyn now mainly operated from behind a computer screen. He built himself a network among the South African diaspora, most with military or law enforcement backgrounds, which he could call upon for help. One day in early March 2020, an old police colleague phoned Steyn, saying that he was working for a German guy in Central America who had a problem across the world in Thailand. Would Steyn be available to take on a job there?

On a conference call the next day, Steyn was introduced to a wealthy German engineer and entrepreneur named Rüdiger Koch. In his mid-fifties, powerfully built with a girth suggesting he enjoyed a beer or two, Koch stumbled into bitcoin in the early days when it was trading at less than $5. Crypto’s take-off in the intervening years had made him rich. He explained that he wanted an investigation carried out into the alleged sale of illicit diesel in Phang Nga Bay and the Andaman Sea. The German believed senior members of the Thai navy were involved in a scam. Koch was ready to pay Steyn’s expenses, travel and lodging, and was offering a $40,000 completion bonus. Steyn accepted the assignment, and the two men agreed on a daily fee of $300 to cover outgoings.