Fighting the Russians after Moscow invaded Ukraine was an attractive prospect for Craig Lang.
His marriage had broken down, he was dishonourably discharged from the US army and had spent time in a Kenyan jail.
But he hit rock bottom this week when a Florida judge found the 35-year-old guilty of conspiracy to murder, after Serafin Lorenzo Jr and his wife Deanna were sprayed with bullets in an office park in Estero, on the Gulf Coast, in 2018.
Lang was initially wanted for murder but Ukraine is barred from deporting anyone who could face the death penalty, suggesting prosecutors may have revised his charges so that he could be extradited.
During the trial, Lang was accused of launching an “international crime spree”.
His signing up to fight in Ukraine was the latest in his military career, which started when he joined the US army in 2008.
Serving in uniform seemed to be the best way to deal with his troubled childhood, which included five years in a foster home.
He saw action in Iraq and Afghanistan, suffering brain injuries when his Humvee hit a roadside bomb.
Lang’s time in the US military effectively ended when he deserted in 2013. With his marriage crumbling, he drove non-stop from the army base in El Paso, Texas, to his wife’s home in North Carolina, some 1,800 miles.
Equipped with night vision goggles, two assault rifles, and claymore mines, he planned to kill her, but was thwarted by the police.
After a spell in jail, Lang was dishonourably discharged in June 2014.
He lost everything. His veterans’ benefits stopped, and he had no health insurance.
A messy divorce culminated with his wife being awarded the family home, custody of their child, and his truck.
He drifted from one job to the next.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, Russia was making its play to annex Crimea.
With only 6,000 combat-trained troops, it fell to a gaggle of paramilitary units to halt the advance, whose ranks were swelled by foreigners.
Around 40 Americans answered the call, Lang was one of them.
He joined the “Right Sector”, led by Dmytro Yarosh, whose dream was to build an ethnically pure Ukraine.
According to Buzzfeed News, Lang’s interviews with the US media turned him into a poster boy for Ukrainians and other Americans who wanted to join the fight.
But after two years in Ukraine, Lang was bored.
The fighting had died down. He joined forces with Alex Zwiefelhofer, another American deserter who had joined the Right Sector.
Searching for adventure, the pair decided the time had come to go elsewhere.
In June 2017, they drew up plans to fight al-Shabaab, a jihadist terrorist organisation allied with al-Qaeda in East Africa. It did not go well.
The pair were arrested on the Kenya-South Sudan border and held for a couple of months in a Nairobi jail, with Zwiefelhofer contracting cholera.
They were deported back to the US and met up in Florida in April 2018.
Still yearning for excitement, they hatched plans to fight the Maduro regime in Venezuela.
But there was one snag. Lang and Zwiefelhofer needed money.
They placed an advert on the website Armslist.com which read: “For Sale: Lots Of Guns. Leaving the country soon. Looking to sale [sic] all my guns as I can’t take them with me.”
Serafin “Danny” Lorenzo, 52, and his wife 50-year-old Deana, who wheeled and dealed in property, antiques and weapons, responded.
The cache, being offered by “Jeremy Goldstein”, a pseudonym, included five Glocks and a Uzi, they claimed.
“Goldstein” turned down the offer of an Oris watch, but accepted an offer of $3,000.
The deal was to be completed in Estero, between Naples and Fort Myers.
Waiting in the shade of Lang and Zwiefelhofer, pretending to be Goldstein, awaited the arrival of their victims.
The crackle of gunfire erupted as they unleashed a volley of bullets.
In all, 63 rounds were fired. Mrs Lorenzo was hit in the abdomen, neck, and head, her husband was hit in the head and elsewhere on his body.
Police rushed to the scene, but they did not find the blood-soaked bodies until the following morning, after being called by staff at a nearby business complex.
Details of how they made their escape emerged in a court indictment.
Lang applied for a passport in the name of Dameon Shae Adcock, a co-conspirator who was paid $1,500 cash and given a case of guns and smoke bombs in return for his part in the escape plot.
Adcock pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years and eight months in jail.
Lang returned to Ukraine, where the authorities cut him no slack for fighting against the Russians, and agreed to extradite him back to the US in June 2024.
His plea to the European Court of Human Rights to block the extradition was rejected.
Lang and Zwiefelhofer, who was convicted in March, both face life sentences, having also been found guilty of firearms offences, robbery and violating the Neutrality Act.
North Carolina prosecutors are also waiting for Lang, whose attempt to flee the US using a false passport could land him with another 25 years behind bars.
