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

[EddieMcWords]

That dude looks like Andy Samberg!

[KOisGod]

NeoCON youth don't go fight for our freedoms, they use our freedoms to scam our allies and enrich themselves - must make a chest thumper like Sean Hannity proud.

[USAisEVIL]

This is not a surprise. Out of the trillion dollars spent on your wars of conquest, much of it is spent this way. And when all you jingoistic lemmings repeat the mantra SUPPORT THE TROOPS you are really supporting criminals like the ones in this case. But none of you cowards will get off the support the troops groupthink bus. The money is not going to the troops, it is lining the pockets of your corrupt rulers and their supporters. Your country is not even capable of having an honest discussion along these lines. Listen to Barrack or McCain or Clinton. They all say the same thing. Support the troops. You people are like Germany in late 1943. Denial in the face of certain defeat.

[dotmafia]

Exactly.

[hip dibler]

Yep. Thank you for your input. We find your views intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[maximilyun]

Huh-UH. I'M not in denial.

Wait....

[CC1]

You have gotten enough mileage in your racist rants by using the Nazi comparisons. Go back to the vineyard already.

[Mack20]

Mind your own business you filthy, American hating foreigner. Everyone please notice this nut bag won't mention his/her country of origin. Check out the other comments by it. Either he/she is a complete fraud living next to Columbia U in NYC or he/she is a jealous, resentful European wishing the communists had taken over the continent after WW2.

[Grannysue]

Heck of a job

[hip dibler]

i'm sure he's gonna do a bitchin job!!

[kgrdem]

But remember, we can't afford Health Care reform or Social Security. Welfare for the rich, whether government contracts or bailing out Wall Street crooks and liars is just peachy. Any kind of care for the rest of us is 'socialism'. See how that works? If you are rich or know someone in the Administration, there is nothing we won't do for you. If you are an average Joe, fuggetaboutit.

[dawlishgal]

Yeah, how far would 300 million bucks have gone towards funding Head Start programs? Instead the whole thing goes for this thug's personal "head start." How many cheesy rhinestone lapel flags can be bought with 300 milion bucks (on remainder at Wal-Mart where I was happy to see them) . Enough so every man over 21 in the US could have at least one to remind him not to question the decisions of the fascists who run our government?

[thrutheseasons]

What happened to that article by that man whose name started with a W supporting Rev. Wright? I love that article. But, NO, like Hillary Clinton, you don't have a backbone. When something is too controversial, you censor it. You respond to the pressure like she did to vote for the war by censoring people's opinions for fear how it may reflect on you. Learn from Obama. Follow the truth, be your own person, stand by the liberty of people to say what they mean without fear that people should think that it would reflect on you and when the dust settles, like Obama, in the realm of public opinion you will be the winner. You need to change this nasty practice of censoring. It really is a shame.

[Kurt]

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT REPEATS MISTAKE, BUTS OLD WEAPONS FROM 23 YEARS OLD KID or
DONT WORRY EFRAIM THIS IS HOW JP MORGAN GOT HIS START

So the Defense Dept spent $300 mill on old weapons, what of it. They seem to waste more money on lost guns ($1 billion as I remember) and scrapped tanks etc, than any other militarty I have ever hears of.

Oh and by the way JP Morgan got his start buying obsolete guns from the Army and then selling them back to the army at a huge profit. So Ephram is just working in the old American tradition and some day there may be The Ephram Diveroli Bank and Trust worth billions. So leave the kid alone. He's in good company.

[thrutheseasons]

I am so shocked by this story, I don't know what to say. However, I don't know why mine are getting censored either. I feel like I am getting shut down before I even begin now. One thing I want the people who run this site to know is by censoring your site you are actually making yourself more liable to whatever is said on your site and perhaps liable to the people who believed that they were having a free discussion. When you do not censor it, you are not liable, and also this would be a true discussion, not just what you want to be discussed. I am very disappointed. I brought up Vince Foster, and I am certain that is why one of my comments was censored.

[dadw5boys]

How about the $50 million they spent to pave one street in Bagdad.

They had to dig it up because they forgot to repair the sewer system first.

No cost has been released on the repaveing of the street.

[sparkey]

Welcome to the club. Many of my comments have simply vanished. I'm starting to wonder if this site is slowly starting to go right wing.

[TheWesternBreed]

Look like a couple of strong, healthy young men. How come they weren't in the army fighting the GWOT up close and personal?

[jnratliff]

Mr. Diveroli sought court delays on national security grounds. “I am the President and only official employee of my business,” he wrote to the judge on Dec. 8, 2005. “My business is currently of great importance to the country as I am licensed Defense Contractor to the United States Government in the fight against terrorism in Iraq and I am doing my very best to provide our troops with all their equipment needs on pending critical contracts.­”
This is exactly what is wrong in America today? You have criminals in government and working for the government and when they do something they shouldn't be doing they cry 911!
God I hate these stupid lying neocon/republicans!

[Boobaloo]

Give an Israel gun runner 300-million dollars of tax money to sell ammo and to scam the gov't which sabotages American missions. Great job.

[Graywolf48]

Now you see the "other priorities" of the young Republicans, war profiteering on a grand scale. This is nothing new, every war from the Revolution to present day has it's crooks, but during WWII and Korea, such activities were prosecuted. This young man deserves to be arrested, tried and if convicted made an example. Perhaps he should be sent to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan equipped only with his own shoddy weaponry and ammunition. Now, will this post ever see the light of day under HuffPo's new moderation program? Written 3/27/08 at 3:24 pm.

[Matango]

Oh Milo Minderbender, when will you learn?

[doubter421]

It is time to face an unpalatable truth. The United States of America is too badly run to win this war. The rest of NATO should not commit troops to US led adventures until Uncle Sam recovers his competence.

[thrutheseasons]

Hilarious comment jukesgirl.