Dude, I'm a defence contractor now! (WoT corruption).

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Unfortunately, the title basically sums up the story of a 22 year old from Miami getting a 300-million dollar contract to supply ammo to the Afghan Army.

A lengthy investigation published Thursday reveals that the Pentagon gave an inexperienced 22-year-old a $300 million contract to provide ammunition to Afghanistan. The shady deal resulted in decades old, substandard munitions being delivered to US and Afghan troops fighting on the front lines of the war on terror.

Following publication of a lengthy New York Times article, the House Oversight Committee announced it would investigate AEY Inc., a fledgling company that thrived after 2003 as the US government began handing out billions of dollars to private defense contractors. Chairman Henry Waxman invited company officials as well as representatives of the State and Defense departments to testify at a hearing next month, according to a news release.

The results of that investigation, which sent seven reporters across three continents, were published Thursday.

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.

The company's president was 22-year-old Efraim E. Diveroli, who ran the company with a 25-year-old from Miami Beach, Florida. Waxman has requested that Diveroli testify, along with company vice president David M. Packouz and Levi Meyer its general manager.

On his MySpace page, Diveroli claims that "problems in high school" forced him to work through most of his teenage years, but that "of course im (sic) a super nice guy!!!"

"I finally got a decent apartment and im (sic) content for the moment," he writes on the page, "however i (sic) definately (sic) have the desire to be very successful in my business and this does take up alot (sic) of my time.

[Eris]

I'm 22. Why can't I get $300 million defence contracts? Frankly, I'd probably be better at it no less. If you're going to have some pork passed your way, have the damn decency to do a good job of it at least.

It's just common courtesy.

[RogueIce]

So what, was he best friends with someone at DOD and/or State, or were they just totally asleep at the wheel on this one?

[Aaron]

Of course DoD couldn't just eliminate the middle-man and buy direct from Russia, what did they think this guy was doing for them?

[Covenant]

Any of us could have done a better job of it. Frankly, combined SDN could probably be a quite effective arms trafficking contractor for the US army, what with our multinational ties and extremely fluffy morals.

So who wants to make part of 300 million?

[Invictus ChiKen]

I just look at these and go... HOW!?

I mean just damn some people get all the luck. Count me in on the 300 Million btw!

[Patrick Degan]

Aw hell, Duchess. And here I thought you were on the road to riches through black budgets and blatant corruption.

[Sea Skimmer]

Of course DoD couldn't just eliminate the middle-man and buy direct from Russia, what did they think this guy was doing for them?

The US military, and supported local forces, have been sucked up most of the world surplus small arms ammo since 2001. I’m sure some stuff probably has been bought direct from Russia, and twenty about other countries. Basically in 2001 the US military had exactly ONE plant it owned that made small arms ammo (max capacity 27 million rounds per year IIRC, but it hadn’t been running at anything like that), and it had been shooting off said ammo faster then it was being produced merely for training for several years previously. Stocks of iron bombs and a few other kinds of munitions were also alarmingly low, but the small arms ammo issue was most critical. Ever since then the military has been paying catch-up to the demand for hundreds of millions of rounds of ammo.

This is pretty fucking bad, but I’m sure it’s not nearly the first time the military went and bought big lots of utter crap ammo that’s not even safe to ship, let alone shoot. Heck, at least this time the product being bought actually existed and could be located… unlike a number of other shady deals the DoD signed off on.

[Aaron]

The US military, and supported local forces, have been sucked up most of the world surplus small arms ammo since 2001. I’m sure some stuff probably has been bought direct from Russia, and twenty about other countries. Basically in 2001 the US military had exactly ONE plant it owned that made small arms ammo (max capacity 27 million rounds per year IIRC, but it hadn’t been running at anything like that), and it had been shooting off said ammo faster then it was being produced merely for training for several years previously. Stocks of iron bombs and a few other kinds of munitions were also alarmingly low, but the small arms ammo issue was most critical. Ever since then the military has been paying catch-up to the demand for hundreds of millions of rounds of ammo.

This is pretty fucking bad, but I’m sure it’s not nearly the first time the military went and bought big lots of utter crap ammo that’s not even safe to ship, let alone shoot. Heck, at least this time the product being bought actually existed and could be located… unlike a number of other shady deals the DoD signed off on.

Fair enough, I'm just wondering how they figured if they couldn't get any how could this guy?

[Sidewinder]

So what, was he best friends with someone at DOD and/or State, or were they just totally asleep at the wheel on this one?

My guess is the second possibility, i.e., some US governmental worker was too lazy and/or stupid to properly research the company before awarding it the contract.

[Jaepheth]

So that's whose fault it is.

I was wondering why the US would be buying up old 7.62 Russian surplus for Iraq. And thus making ammo for my Nagant pricier and harder to find.

[Vympel]

This guy wasn't buying ammo from Russia, he was got 40-year old Chinese-make ammunition, apparently. Anything he could've gotten from the former USSR or WarPac at a reasonable price would've been better off than 40 year old ammo (in poor condition, no less) from anywhere.

[Durandal]

And people always look at me strange when I say that the first step on the road to cutting spending is slashing the living shit out of the Pentagon's budget.

Come on folks, is anyone really surprised? This is the organization that brought us "psychic teleportation" and "let's see if we can kill goats by looking at them".

[Glocksman]

Of course DoD couldn't just eliminate the middle-man and buy direct from Russia, what did they think this guy was doing for them?

The US military, and supported local forces, have been sucked up most of the world surplus small arms ammo since 2001. I’m sure some stuff probably has been bought direct from Russia, and twenty about other countries. Basically in 2001 the US military had exactly ONE plant it owned that made small arms ammo (max capacity 27 million rounds per year IIRC, but it hadn’t been running at anything like that), and it had been shooting off said ammo faster then it was being produced merely for training for several years previously. Stocks of iron bombs and a few other kinds of munitions were also alarmingly low, but the small arms ammo issue was most critical. Ever since then the military has been paying catch-up to the demand for hundreds of millions of rounds of ammo.

This is pretty fucking bad, but I’m sure it’s not nearly the first time the military went and bought big lots of utter crap ammo that’s not even safe to ship, let alone shoot. Heck, at least this time the product being bought actually existed and could be located… unlike a number of other shady deals the DoD signed off on.

This has shown up in civilian price increases for milsurp and new production ammo in common military use.

The price of 7.62x39 new production ammo has nearly doubled over the last several years.
I used to pay less than fifty bucks for 500 rounds and now it's $85 or so, depending upon the brand and country of origin.
It's not quite so bad with 7.62x54R, but a 440 round can of late 1940's - early 1950's production corrosive ammo still costs around $70, but late 70's Hungarian light ball is available for about $10 more.

The bargains are in calibers that aren't commonly in use anymore, such as 7.62x25mm Tokarev.
A 1,224 round can of Romanian 1980's surplus is only $120.
At least I can keep my CZ-52 fed.

[The Yosemite Bear]

and in other news, when did Shep and Sea Skimmer get a security contract in Iraq?