From the New York Times, and here's a longer, more detailed story summarized below: Efraim E. Diveroli is a 22-year-old resident of Miami Beach. His company, AEY Incorporated, was founded in 1999 by his father, Michael Diveroli. The younger Diveroli was listed as a company officer in 2004, and became AEY's president the next year. AEY operates by purchasing weapons from a group known as "Evdin Ltd." (incorporated 2006), based in Cyprus.
Since 2003, AEY has been awarded several military contracts totaling nearly $300 million to arm security forces in Afghanistan. The company recently had its contract suspended and is under investigation by the Department of Defense for providing Afghan forces bad ammunition. AEY had claimed that the weapons were Hungarian; the US Army disputes this and says that the weapons are Chinese and were manufactured twenty years before Diveroli was born. The Army also claims that the ammunition was in extremely poor condition, and in many cases useless.
Diveroli has denied any wrongdoing.
Here is a craigslist want-ad posted on behalf of AEY a few years ago. Here is a short article about AEY's contract, from back in 2007. (The CL link in this article is dead, so I don't believe it's the same one I listed.)
--j_k
[ March 27, 2008, 08:47 PM: Message edited by: James Tiberius Kirk ]
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
So the weapons Diveroli was supplying were old Chinese surplus from the 60s? Is that the idea here?
But see JTK, I think you're just unpatriotic and an America hater. OSC says the war is going GREAT. We just have to give it a 17th chance.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I'm told the 20th time is a charm, so really we're just being impatient.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
That's one more than I have.
Posted by insanesam (Member # 11548) on :
All we are saying, is give war a chance.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Also, he couldn't find any AK-47 ammo that's not 50 years old? Isn't that like the most freakin' common ammo calibre on the planet?
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Morbo: Also, he couldn't find any AK-47 ammo that's not 50 years old? Isn't that like the most freakin' common ammo calibre on the planet?
Give the man some credit then, he went above and beyond to find useless ammo amidst a sea of perfectly fine ammo.
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
I'm actually more interested in his apparent ability to get federal agencies to hand him large amounts of money. I'm sure there's an entertaining, soon-to-be-released-in-theaters story behind all this.
--j_k
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: So the weapons Diveroli was supplying were old Chinese surplus from the 60s? Is that the idea here?
I just noticed that the first link in the OP was the follow-up story, not the one I originally summarized. The more detailed link is added now.
--j_k
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
I think his only MySpace friend was the default guy that invented it. So he really has no friends. Or they all bailed when the crap hit the fan.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
I was reading about this some this morning.
So the guy is only 22 and already totally holds the reins of the company? Why did his father turn it over to him so early?
Says he was a company office four years ago (that would be age 18) - so maybe at first they were hoping if he got caught he would only go to juvenile-hall.
Sounds like he was out to make quick money with absolutely no ethics at all.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Putting very young, largely untested people in charge of significant company works = stupid. I'm 22 and know a lot of very intelligent, very responsible people, but they're just starting out nevertheless. There's usually a reason for that.
Not to say that they wouldn't be more ethical than this fellow, but I wouldn't have them run a company quite yet.
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