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Feds Find Emails Revealing Chinese Ammo Scam
First Efraim Diveroli was mocked for being the only U.S. arms dealer with a MySpace page. Now it looks like the feds will rest most of their prosecution on his emails.
The feds say they've got a pretty good paper trail on Diveroli, the 22-year-old arms trader who was just arrested and accused of providing shoddy and illegal Chinese ammo for the Afghan Army.
You remember him? He's the Miami party boy who inexplicably landed a $300 million U.S. Army weapons contract in January 2007. The New York Times put him on the front page back in March.
He was arrested along with several others involved with his company, AEY, Inc., including David Packouz, the AEY director and vice president; Alexander Podrizki, the company's man in Tirana, Albania; and Ralph Merrill, who provided "financial and managerial assistance."
They were charged with violating the Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits buying and selling weapons from certain countries.
According to the indictment released today by the U.S. attorney in Miami, Diveroli got nervous last year when his Albanian supplier emailed him some photos showing that the weapons he planned to buy and ship were clearly marked "Made in China."
Diveroli emailed the U.S. State Department in April asking whether, hypothetically, it was OK to fulfill a U.S. Army contract with weapons from China, the indictment says.
It's not, they told him. Not without special permission from the President.
He emailed back and asked if there was an exception for weapons that may have been sitting in Albania for 20 years, the indictment says.
The State Department emailed back and said there was no such exception.
So he had one of his financial backers, Ralph Merrill, help take care of the problem.
On or about April 25,2007, RALPH MERRILL sent an electronic communication to EFRAIM DIVEROLI and DAVID PACKOUZ, which referenced attached photographs showing methods of "cleaning wooden crates." Attached to the communication was a photograph showing a person scraping the words "MADE IN CHINA" off of a wooden crate.
Diveroli then filled out forms for the Army indicating that the ammo was from Hungary rather than China.
The Army paid AEY more than $10 million between July and December 2007, according to the indictment, before the Times broke the story in March and his arms exporting license was suspended.
There may be more charges coming from this investigation. A spokeswoman for the ICE office, Nicole Navas, said Friday that the investigation was ongoing and declined to comment further.





Comments (13)
DUDE!
WHERES' MY AMMO!!!
June 20, 2008 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um, is it just me or does he look like SNL's Andy Samberg?
http://www.exposay.com/celebrity-photos/andy-samberg-2006-mtv-movie-awards-arrivals-upRntu.jpg
June 20, 2008 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
With this Regime, it's explicable; we just need someone to audit the contract file to learn what reason the Contracting Officer had to include them in the bid process and why he/she determined the Company had the background, infrastructure, and financial means to fulfill the contract. Never happen.
June 20, 2008 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Diveroli. Rhymes with mafiosi. Latin for patsy-oroli.
June 20, 2008 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
He made his bones.
June 21, 2008 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm all in support of CRACKING DOWN ON NO BID FRONT LOADED GOV. CONTRACTING with trace back to DUMSFIELD/CHENEY and their butt buddies.
BUT...as a card carrying defense lawyer...I have some doubts about this prosecution.
1) THIS IS A TECHNICAL READING OF THE LAW PROHIBITING SELLING ARMS FROM CHINA....when the ammo came from Albania after coming from China?
SO WHEN DOES MOLDY AMMO no longer come from China?
2) THE CONTRACT WAS TO SUPPLY AK 47 ROUNDS...for Afghani police. DID HE SUPPLY THE AMMO....yes.
Was it defective...yes?
THE CHARGES OUGHT TO BE supplying "defective ammo" not CHINESE AMMO?
Because...."DOES IT MATTER WHAT COUNTRY MANUFACTURED THE AMMO?"
If this ammo had not been moldy...would this contractor have "met material contractual obligations"?....and....AMERICAN CORPORATIONS TRADE WITH CHINA ALL THE TIME...AND AMMO IS NOT CONSIDERED HIGHLY SENSITIVE WEAPONS that could effect our national security...especially when we "are working with Afghani and Iraqi police"?
THERE HAS BEEN ALOT OF NEFARIOUS CHINESE/US CORP trading going on...especially in light of the murder of an honest Florida cop named RAY LEMME, who got tortured and whacked out for doing his job.
See story and photos at JOHN CAYLOR'S INSIDER MAGAZINE website....TO UNDERSTAND THE DUPLICITY, HYPOCRISY, AND INCONSISTENCY OF DOJ HQ?
June 21, 2008 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wait -- so if Americans let their Cuban cigars take a brief haitus in El Salvador or Nicaragua, they're no longer Cuban cigars and can be imported? Schweet.
June 21, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
tb,
U sound totally whacked.
June 21, 2008 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
On its face this almost makes the Coalition Provisional Authority's hiring of college students who posted resumes at the Heritage Foundation look like a smart move. Will we ever find out who greased the skids for these fine, young Americans to provide ammunition to coalition troops that was pure crap? Talk about supporting the troops...
Either someone made this happen this way, or our ideas of incompetence have a ceiling somewhere. Has the bar been lowered so far? Don't answer.
June 21, 2008 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
No kidding. The people who really should be arrested and thrown in the slammer are the ones in the Pentagon who hired these fakers. Of course, we all know the likelihood of that happening.
June 21, 2008 9:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps the whole point of the defective arms shipments was to hamper our so-called Afghani allies from being able to fight the Taliban effectively. Wouldn't this lead to an excuse to increase US boots on the ground in certain strategic areas? Hamid Karzai's government is weakening and a changing of the guard may be in play.
June 23, 2008 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where are the comments??? It says there are 11 (this would be 12), but I can't see any of them.
Why?
-- ARG
July 24, 2008 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, now I see them.
I had to post my own comment to get the rest of them to show.
Maybe that's a bug?
-- ARG
July 24, 2008 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink