Report Details How One Company Sold the U.S. 40-year-old Soviet-Era Chinese Ammo

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/war-contracting-gone

By Matthew Blake 06/25/2008

A Congressional report released Tuesday details the sordid story of how the military contrator AEY, and its 22 year-old company president, Efraim Diveroli, won, and then lost, a $298-million Pentagon contract to supply munitions to Afghanistan security forces.

AEY and Diveroli became infamous after a March New York Times story detailed how the company, which employed less than a handful of people and operated from an unmarked Miami Beach office, rapidly rose to become one of the most successful, and unreliable, wartime contractors. In 2004, at the age of 18, Diveroli took over AEY from his father. At that time, the company primarily sold equipment to local police forces. Diveroli, though, quickly tapped into the lucrative wartime contracting business. But fulfilling the contracts that AEY won was another matter.

For the Afghanistan contract, AEY bought Chinese-made, 40-year-old rifle cartridges from Albania and other former Soviet bloc nations. Since buying Chinese-made arms is illegal under U.S. law, AEY worked with the Albanian defense ministry to repackage the arms, and disguise their point of origin, before shipping them to Afghanistan.

[Supersedeas]

1. the Bushist version of competence and accountability

[JHB]

2. AEY: Like AEI, only slightly more crooked

Diveroli should have bought a few more congresscritters before pulling a scam this baldfaced.