The House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing on April 17, 2008 on the exposed 'ammunition for Afghanistan' contract awarded to an obscure company in Florida. The announcement. The invitees include the top managers (and likely only employees) of the company. Read the full NYT story, a fascinating account of how easy one can get hold of American taxpayers money and then what one can do with that money.
Interesting is also the link of the Diveroli family to Botach/Boteach empire. I found a relevant entry in Steve Sailer's blog. Here's hoping more of this stuff gets out and some people are going to be prosecuted for this.
It's really hard to distill this story into a few paragraphs, I recommend reading the above, but here's a couple of quotes from it:
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.
So taxpayers have been paying an exorbitant amount for substandard ammunition for Afghan police and military at least partly from illegal sources (China).
Public records show that AEY’s contracts since 2004 have potentially been worth more than a third of a billion dollars. Mr. Diveroli set the value higher: he claimed to do $200 million in business each year.
And this is a company with virtually no track record and just a handful of known employees.
Efraim E. Diveroli, who is this guy?
- born in 1986
- high school dropout
- 2003: internship at Botach Tactical (military and police supply outfit), owned by Bar-Kochba Botach, Efraim's uncle
AYE's history
- Incorporated in 1999 by Michael Diveroli
- Little activity for years, M. Diveroli sole executive
- in 2004 Efraim Diveroli, son of Michael enters the scene holding 1% ownership at 18 years old
- same year, $126,000 award for ammunition for the Special Forces; contracts for ammunition or equipment to the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Transportation Security Administration and the State Department
- 2005: Efraim E. Diveroli becomes AEY's president at 19 years old
- same year: $5.7 million contract for rifles for Iraqi forces, company starts developing bad reputation for unreliability
- 2006: first mention of AEY's vice president, David M. Packouz, born in 1983
- End 0f 2006: Banc of America Investment Services in Miami certifies that AEY has cash on hand to the amount of $5,469,668.95
- January 2007, Army awards AEY contract worth almost $300 million for munitions to Afghanistan's army and police
- Levi Meyer, 25, briefly listed as general manager
- By 2008, Michael Diveroli, David M. Packouz and Levi Meyer all claim to have left the company
- Company address leads to an unmarked office in a Miami Beach building
- As of March 21, $155 million of munitions had been ordered by the army, and AEY can complete the shipments already ordered even though the the contract has been suspended as of March 26, 2008. It is unknown what AEY's expenses have been. Care to make a guess?
Update: Diary has been updated with the details around AEY and the players involved.
Update2: Michael Diveroli, is the manager and registered agent of Worldwide Tactical, LLC - suprise, surprise - having the same business address as AEY, Inc. Worldwide Tactical, LLC has been awarded over a million dollars in federal contracts since 2000 and got an emergency two-year contract in 2006 to supply cots to the State of Louisiana. Worldwide Tactical recently renewed a contract to provide cold weather search and rescue gear for Lincoln/Lancaster County, Nebraska.
( thank you, Lindsay Beyerstein)