22-Year-Old Efraim Diveroli, Awarded $300 Million Defense Contract To Arm Afghan Forces, Supplied Them With Aging, Defective Arms

New York Times:

Since 2006, when the insurgency in Afghanistan sharply intensified, the Afghan government has been dependent on American logistics and military support in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan's army and police forces.

Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.

Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law. The company's president, Efraim E. Diveroli, was also secretly recorded in a conversation that suggested corruption in his company's purchase of more than 100 million aging rounds in Albania, according to audio files of the conversation.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[speakeasy]

You could fund education, health insurance and improve our entire infrastructure with the money wasted on paying corrupt defense contractors. Just as the mortgage crisis shows, it would be far cheaper to hire 20,000 gov't regulators to watch over corruption that allow pay hundreds of billions to bail them out... You watch and wait, the next bubble is with defense contractors who will bring us to a new low.

[Bobleblah1]

This is absolutely crazy.

22 years old? Someone please tell me this is a joke.

The real question is: Who are this kids parents? No really?
There is no way he got this on his own.
Who is this guy connected to that could actually secure a contract like this?
Now any of you out there that have ever tried to get a contract for anything know just how much bullshit is going on behind the scenes, god forbid the contract is related to the sale of ARMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS. Why is this guy not serving in the military?
PS Why couldnt they have found a company with people who actually know something about weaponry
To do this job?

I dont know this guy so I dont want to dump on him unfairly, but something here is not on the up an up.
This has "Good Job Brownie" written all over it.

[fiatpax]

He inherited the company from Daddy.

He got the "no bid" contract from the Pentagon. When he was arrested for possession of a forged ID (which he obtained so he could purchase alcohol) he protested that he needed to stay out of jail because he was important in fighting the "war on terrorism". To avoid a conviction which would have prohibited him from dealing in contracts, he entered a diversion program for first offenders and avoided a trial.

What other famous father-son pair does this remind you of?

[jrldev]

Good Reporting but Way Late to do anything about it. If our "leaders" were CEO's of any corporation
they (all of them-including congress committee chairpersons) will be kick-out by the Board of Directors. The problem with the USA Board of Directors (the voting public) is that most of us are
interested in the next gossip coming out of hollywood and the next champion in sports events.
Politics and local government administration is never of interest to the vast majority of the public until
3 days before election time. My local experience with groups ages 17 to 24 (in California -Bay Area) is
that they can tell you every detail of the latest entertainer gossip or any sport team statistics but you
ask a simple question such as to name the Capital of California and less than 50% know the answer.

[holidays]

1) admit there is a problem. Democracy is a system of averages. For your BoD scenario to work, you need 51% in agreement before addressing every instance of malfeasance. 51% of a Board is a few people. 51% of the general population is millions of people. Garnering consensus from a million independent minds it's easy. 2) acknowledge that there is a power greater than you. Who is responsible for handing out these contracts? Who is responsible for oversight? It's a bad idea to have a few million people review every contract. The people in government are responsible for their actions AND the government already contains the structures for oversight. This contract doesn't need to land on your desk before a moral/ethical assessment of its merits can be made. This is a case of vincible ignorance. But not on your part. 3) make a decision to turn one's will toward the care of the greater power. Think of it this way: the second law of thermodynamics says energy tends to move from a place of high concentration to a place of low concentration. The greatest effect one can have on the institution is in a place of high concentration. Turn to the person in line behind you at the grocery store and ask "Have you been affected by this mortgage crisis?" There are many possible outcomes. It's not about affecting millions of minds. The greatest effect occurs at the start not the end. Therefore, just one mind will do.

[LaurieLee]

And who was the government official who OKed this deal?

[ZingoBonMot]

They should have KOed it instead.

[Klip]

Gotta give him credit-
What's worse him or Haliburton?
How much of this cash has he donated to the McCain campaign?

[rpence]

Let's send him over there. I'm not saying put him on the front lines or anything, but judging from the look on his face and what he did with the contract, paying a few dues wouldn't hurt him.

[bookish]

They could put him in front of the front lines, for all I care. Oh, and take away his allowance.

[samuraijack]

What a punk. I hope the guys fighting the Taliban whose ammo failed find your ass and give you a haircut. Punk.

[Marichu]

What I would like to know is who awarded that contract; was it a person or a committee? Were existing protocols ignored or are those protocols inadequate allowing loopholes? I find it mind boggling that there aren't any safeguards in place to avoid or discourage this type of graft and incompetency. The company should be made to return the full amount plus interest and a grand jury should be convened to investigate AEY, Inc. and those involved within the government who vetted the contract.

[BaManu]

...no one is here to take your message but leave your name and number and we will get back to you...may be...

[dawlishgal]

I'm sure there is rich daddy who contributed a lot of money to Republicans somewhere in this kid's background.

[Beowoof]

Why would Bush/Cheney turn their backs on the private sector at this point? Well at least this kid isn't just naive and dreamy eyed right out of college. And who said the American dream is dead when he has achieved it at 22.

[dadw5boys]

So!!!!!
The guy hired to set up the Iraqi Stock market and get Iraqi Bank and Busineses going did not have a college degree and not banking experience.

His only job before the Bush assignment in Iraq was selling ice cream from a truck to kids.
He went from Miniumn wage to 100k a year with no education or experience only political connections.

[GAC1]

This must be the pentagon's answer to sending the $$ to Viktor Bout. Good jobs guys.

[treadway123]

Maybe we can send Hillary in Ducking an swaying to miss all that sniper fire, and she can deliver proper amo in that decked out jet, an she can jusst handt it out to them mililary kids one by one.

[demigod]

Yep, some Hillary hater had to get into the act, total corruption on the Republican side, can't deal with the issue, gotta drag Hillary into it. Way to go, troglydite.

[samuraijack]

No wonder the Pentagon mails sensitive missile parts to Taiwan. I mean, in the name of all that is sane, who the hell let this punk get a contract for anything other than washing dishes? A freakin massage artist is his "partner". Give me a break.

[helonias]

Maybe he could make a few plowshares out of the ammo.

[siegfried89]

Yet another private contractor gets very rich while the troops live in what would amount to squalor, risk their lives and are paid one-fourth as much as the lowest paid contractor. If injured "on the job" they are treated in an underfunded VA hospital while contractors get first class health care paid for by the same old suckers--the American taxpayers. Crappy arms and ammunition is supporting the troops?

This is another of the zillion reasons for American citizens, whether they have loved ones who can't shoot first or find this occupation despicable, to take to the streets en masse. What will it take another 4,000 dead or 100,000? Numbers don't matter and trying to rationalize this occupation by comparing the death toll to Viet Nam or WW II is twisted man twisted.

When you vote in November, and I hope you do, vote for the candidates who have the best chance of bringing some sanity back to the leadership of this once great and good country. THIS OCCUPATION IS IMMORAL AS ARE THOSE WHO PLANNED IT, CONDUCT IT AND SUPPORT IT. There will come a time for Payback.

[JScott]

And ya wonder if someone at SNL noticed as well, have to watch SNL if they did.

[JScott]

More than 1 comment about how that looks like Andy Samberg, so it's not just me that thought that.