Boys with Guns: How Two Young Jews Outsmarted the International Gun Market. A guy with greed

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"Lord of War"(en Lord of War) is a 2005 American film directed by Andrew Niccol and starring Nicolas Cage. Released in the United States on September 16, 2005. The film was released on DVD on January 17, 2006, and on Blu-ray on July 27, 2006.

Cage plays a semi-legal arms dealer who, working with the tacit connivance of the US government, supplies weapons to various rebels, dictators and terrorists around the world. It is believed that the prototype of his character is Victor Bout. The film was officially approved by Amnesty International as it showed the dangers of the arms trade. Movie slogan: "The first rule of an arms dealer is don't get shot with your own merchandise"

Plot

Film about the story of a native of former USSR, namely from Odessa, which has become one of the world's largest illegal arms dealers. Yuri Orlov's parents emigrated from Ukraine to the United States and settled in Brighton Beach, where they opened a small restaurant. Children were not eager to follow in their parents' footsteps. Yuri, thinking about what to do, came to the conclusion: the most profitable thing is to trade in weapons. Because in a world full of aggression, weapons are never superfluous. It is necessary both for relatives fighting with each other, and for rival gangs, and for warring states. Yuri began to supply weapons (Uzi submachine guns) to local criminal gangs. Gradually, the business grew - large arms flows were sent to major world hot spots. Yuri Orlov, relying on his younger brother Vitaly, is quickly gaining his place under the sun and hopes to soon become the same cool "seller of death" as his idol Simeon Weiss. Yuri had access to a military warehouse in Ukraine, where his relative was a general, from there he sold several thousand AKs, several Mi-24 helicopters and several hundred RPG-7s. But there is not so much good in the arms sales business as Yuri had assumed: Interpol agent Jack Valentine is gradually approaching him, his wife leaves him, and his brother Vitaly is killed while selling weapons to African thugs. When trying to transport Vitaly's body to the United States at New York Airport, Yuri is detained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. However, he is released due to his great connections with the US military. After being released, Yuri continues the business of the "Lord of War"

Weapons in the movie

Weapon

• Rifle M16A1
• Rifle M16A2
• Rifle AR-15
• M4 Carbine
• Glock
• S&W Model 686
• M60 (known to Andre Batisto Jr. as "Rambo Gun")
• Type 56
• Gold-plated AKS74U Yugoslavian production.
• RPG-7
• Beretta 92
• Type 67 gun
• Steyr AUG

Military equipment and transport

• Tank T-72
• BMP-1
• container ship Yuri Orlov
• Fast Attack Craft Interpol
• Helicopter Mi-24A
• Ural 4320
• An-12
• Aero L-39 training aircraft
• Yury's Limousine Cadillac Fleetwood
• Citroën DS André Batista Sr.
• 1964 Pontiac Bonneville Andre Batista Jr.
• Blackburn Buccaneer
• Hawker Hunter Fighter

Cast

• The film crew purchased 3,000 real Czech CZ SA Vz.58 assault rifles instead of AK-47s, because real weapons turned out to be cheaper than dummies.
• Filming took place in South Africa, the Czech Republic and New York.
• No American company wanted to finance the project, so the film was financed and produced by European companies.
• The tanks in the picture are real. Once they belonged to the Czech army, and now they were intended for sale to Libya. History Television, series Fact and Film, episode «Lord of War» The filmmakers had to warn NATO just in case, so that, having fixed a large accumulation of equipment from satellites, they would not decide that a war had begun.
• Andrew Niccol assured that real arms dealers acted as consultants in the film.
• In the middle of the film, you can hear 3 obscene expressions in Russian. In the dub, they were all changed to more "soft" swear words.
• A soldier who was filming NAR blocks from a Mi-24 helicopter when Interpol officers arrived at the port of Odessa can see the buttonholes of tank troops.
• The 22nd president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, served as the prototype for Andre Batista, the president of Liberia, depicted in the film.

From August 18 in the Russian box office, the tragicomedy "Guys with Guns" with Jonah Hill and Miles Teller in the lead roles. The film tells the true story of two sassy students of the Volryd synagogue who invaded the world of the arms trade and rode their charisma, confidence and dumping until the intelligence agencies caught them cheating. Disgusting men tell how it all really happened, and why starting a business in half with a close friend is not a good idea, no matter what you do.

“Actually, I didn’t plan on becoming an arms dealer. I was going to make some quick cash and finally start my music career. I never had my own trunk either. But then I realized that this is a very exciting feeling - to steer a business that literally decides the fate of entire nations "

David Packose, international arms dealer

By 2007, the United States was firmly stuck in two military conflicts at once. The Americans fought the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, sought out weapons of mass destruction, and hunted down supporters of the recently executed Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

The Taliban and al-Qaeda, seemingly safely and cleanly defeated back in 2001, began to raise their heads again. In Iraq, Islamists of all stripes and supporters of the ousted Hussein launched a full-scale terror against civilians and American military personnel. Every day, improvised roadside bombs exploded here and there, suicide bombers loaded with high-quality plastic explosives entered secure sites with little difficulty, the number of young American citizens killed increased, and so did the costs of the war overseas; the dissatisfaction of ordinary Americans with the ineffective actions of George W. Bush and the Republican Party also grew. All this happened against the backdrop of the stress of the upcoming presidential elections (although Bush could no longer participate in them).

After George W. Bush took over in 2001 presidential chair, the approach to the war in the Middle East managed to change dramatically. Every year the role of the US Armed Forces was reduced, and their work was taken over by local allies and private military companies. Funds for paying for the services of PMCs increased by 2.5 times in just 7 years: 145 billion dollars in 2001 to 390 billion in 2008. The US government hoped in the near future to transfer the responsibility for building a peaceful life and fighting terrorism to the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq. The construction of national armed forces, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq, was costly - thousands of instructors were engaged in their education and training, it was necessary to provide them with everything they needed - from machine guns and cartridges to tanks and helicopters. In addition, the United States also armed all sorts of non-state formations - detachments of friendly field commanders, local self-defense forces and other "correct" Mujahideen.

Costs were rising, and the Pentagon wanted to save

The cheapest weapons could be found in the former Warsaw Pact countries, where they were stockpiled in unthinkable quantities in case of an imminent war with NATO, and now they simply rusted in warehouses idle. But for many reasons, the Ministry of Defense could not work directly with many countries and suppliers: embargoes, sanctions, the dubious past of counterparties. To purchase such weapons, intermediaries were required, people who organized the supply of the right things in the right quantity, so much so that these things became whiter than snow in legal terms just in time for the moment when they fall into the hands of the customer. According to the logic of greater openness and competitiveness of business, which George W. Bush advocated so much, everyone was allowed to participate in securing contracts for the supply of arms and ammunition. This gave small companies a chance to squeeze into a huge arms market, long divided among themselves by such giants as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and others.

Guys with no guns

David Pacous (left) and Ephraim Diveroli.

The history of the big business of little boys begins in the resort town of Miami Beach in sunny Florida. In one of the city's orthodox synagogues, David Pacous and Ephraim Diveroli met. Pacous was a tall, thin guy who wore a kippah and traditional Jewish clothes in the synagogue and was four years older than Diveroli. Ephraim with curly hair and weight problems at that time was known as a real class clown, he had a huge, always laughing mouth and kind eyes. But a very solid core was hidden inside - this guy did not feel fear at all and always moved towards his goal in the most direct way.

Pacous had a clear problem with excessive use of marijuana - at least his parents thought so. As soon as he graduated from high school in the US, they sent him to a specialized school in Israel for "addicted" teenagers. He wrote from there to his friend: “Dude, I threw acid on the shores of the Dead Sea. It's transcendent!"

Upon returning home, Pacous somehow studied for two semesters at a Florida college, but soon realized that studying was not his way. To earn money for weed and entertainment, he got a massage course and began to earn money, kneading the stout bodies of tourists on the coast - it turned out to be much more profitable than working in some fast food. In the evenings, together with friends, he sat on the ocean beach and dreamed of becoming a real pop star. He composed heartfelt ballads with naive lyrics, and the rest of the time he had no idea what to do with his life.

Ephraim Diveroli was very different.
He knew exactly what he wanted to be.
An arms salesman - like his grandfather, father and uncle.

And to become not just one of the dynasty, but to grow to a much larger scale - to become the new Viktor Bout, a real arms baron. Rich, dangerous and mysterious.

After 9th grade, Diveroli was kicked out of school, and he went to Los Angeles to help his uncle, who was supplying Glocks, Colts and Zig Sauers to the police and American intelligence agencies. The boy quickly got used to the family business and understood how everything works here. He adored weapons - loved to talk about them, shoot them and, of course, sell them. Ephraim was barely 16, and he was already traveling all over the country and making contracts for his uncle here and there. But by the age of 18, he was tired of being a traveling salesman, he quarreled with his uncle about money and decided that it was time to open his own business. What he would do - did not cause questions, he already had his own plan. As elegant as it is simple.

Ephraim Diveroli.

Most sellers gradually grow their business, attracting more and more buyers: advertising, personal charisma, high quality goods, a network of dealers, and so on. All this is nonsense - decided Ephraim. He only needs one buyer, but a very large one. The largest buyer of weapons in the country is the US Department of Defense. No one buys as many weapons as the army: they are like a kid in a toy store, ready to sweep everything from F-22 fighters, Abrams tanks and billion-dollar aircraft carriers, to dime cartridges, spare magazines and paper clips.

Under federal law, the Department must make public all of its purchases (unless they are classified). For the next few months, all porn sites disappeared from Diveroli's browser history, and only one Internet address settled in it: fbo.gov, which hosts public information about purchases.

Week after week, he reviewed all the contracts offered by the government. And when I thoroughly understood how this system works, I began to take on small deliveries that I could provide on my own. It worked simply: you had to find a small contract, then find a supplier, negotiate everything with him and, having appeased your greed, offer a not very high price at the competition. Voila! Diveroli undertook to supply machine guns for the Colombian army, helmets for the Iraqis and other trifles in small volumes. A hundred machine guns there, a thousand helmets here - the margin is quite small. But, firstly, these successful transactions fit into the history of his office and made it more experienced and more reliable in the eyes of the government. And, secondly, Diveroli made up for lost profits after the bidding at the auction. This guy certainly knew how to trade weapons.

He knew how to be on a short footing with anyone,
he found his own approach to everyone: to the bigwigs from the Pentagon, big businessmen, diplomats and government officials.

He met with high officials at the Pentagon and began his presentation: “Why don’t you get these beautiful Korean licensed copies instead of expensive Belgian machine guns for Colombians?” or “These Chinese Kevlar helmets are no worse than domestic designs, what, sir, does it matter to you what kind of helmet these damn Iraqi cowards will run from the battlefield?”. Diveroli perfectly mastered the art of charming the military, all these “yes, sir”, “no, sir”, “I obey, it will be done” - acted on the generals without fail, and he always managed to get his way. Where the contract included a profit of 3%, he eventually received 33% - things went uphill. In the end, the time came when Diveroli could no longer cope with everything alone. It was then that he remembered his old friend Packowse.

AEY conquers the world

In November 2005, Pacous became a partner in Diveroli's AEY. The former masseur very quickly got into the essence of the work and soon could just as well understand all the intricacies and subtle legal nuances of working with the government. The guys were on their phones 24/7, sending hundreds of e-mails all over the world, and after successful deals, hung out in local karaoke bars, drinking alcohol and sniffing cocaine from a container in the form of a plastic bullet that Diveroli always carried with him. Contract after contract, somewhere more successful, somewhere not quite, some not at all (the guys failed to supply tens of thousands of pistols for the Iraqis, but this did not spoil their "credit history") - Ephraim and David felt something big was approaching.

In June 2006, they flew to Paris for a major arms exhibition Eurosatory and made acquaintance with the cunning Swiss Heinrich Thomet there. This guy had connections everywhere: he worked with Russia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania and all those who have long been blacklisted in the United States. Tomet was exactly the "shadow" supplier that the two from Miami Beach sorely needed. In turn, Tomet had big plans for the guys - he was under surveillance on suspicion of selling Serbian weapons to Iraq, and two Americans with a legal office could help him bypass any restrictions and enter into legal relations with the US Government.

big jackpot

On July 28, 2006, a huge contract for almost $300 million was posted on fbo.gov: ammunition for Kalashnikov assault rifles, a Dragunov sniper rifle, 30-mm grenades for underbarrel grenade launchers, mortar shells of all calibers, rockets for man-portable air defense systems and a bunch of Soviet junk. Huge numbers in the "quantity" column, a real arsenal for the Afghan army. And this is a contract for one supplier! All or nothing, Diveroli decided and called Pacous immediately.

AEY was located in a small rented apartment, and all the equipment consisted of two laptops and a couple of mobile phones. Everything was littered with pizza boxes, cans of soda and beer, and the smell of marijuana that never faded in the air. Their plan rested on three advantages. Firstly, they are exactly the same small business that the president talks about supporting so much, obliging government agencies to work with small companies. Secondly, they had experience working on contracts for the supply of weapons to the government - all small transactions have developed into a good portfolio. And thirdly, they already had a supplier - the same Swiss Tomet, who specialized in gray markets, where all the ammunition needed under this contract was sold. It was worth the risk.

Day and night, young arms dealers were on the phone, negotiating with suppliers in Eastern Europe - Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine.

English! English! English!” Packows yelled frantically into the phone, trying to call at least someone with knowledge of English in this damn collapsed socialist camp.

"Your buy, we sell whatever you want!". The contract did not specify the allowable terms for the manufacture of ammunition, so they were ready to buy everything - old, rusty, dilapidated, as long as it could explode and shoot. Tomet lived up to expectations and found reliable suppliers in Albania who could provide the necessary amount of ammunition for the first delivery.

All the work took place in this modest building in Miami Beach. Photo by The NYT.

It's time to apply. A heated argument flared up around the margin, which should have been added to the contract amount. All big companies will probably add the standard 10%, and AEY could dump and ask for only 9%, which will increase the chances of winning. But hell, 1% on a deal like this is $3 million, a huge amount. But what if competitors are not greedy and also ask for 9%? It's better to play it safe and add only 8% - and that's another minus three million: a chic new Audi, model girls by the pool, after all, a whole mountain of cocaine to fill up a plastic bullet! Ten minutes before the deadline for submission of documents, they submitted their application. In the column, the amount of the contract was 298,000,000 US dollars.

The War Department is a clumsy machine, and it took a long time before the guys knew the result of the competition. On the afternoon of January 26, 2007, Pacous was parking his old Mazda near the house when Diveroli called: the first delivery would be only $600,000, but they had won the contract.

“Those old fat cats who now run the arms business and count the slightest fluctuations in their stocks on the stock exchange have no idea that we are going to give them a good kick in the ass. In a couple of years, AEY will be worth $10 billion and they'll just be in the ass!"

But between today and $10 billion in the future, there was still a lot of work to be done. It was necessary to agree with all suppliers and organize all the logistics of goods between Albania and Afghanistan. The duo hired a good accountant who put all the papers in order. The Pentagon still had a lot of issues with AEY, including their failed early contracts, but they were resolved extremely quickly and always in favor of AEY. It's hard to say why, but most likely because AEY's bid was $50 million lower than their closest competitors. The Pentagon simply couldn't pass up this opportunity to save taxpayers money.

Pacous (left) and Diveroli in Gun Boys.

Diveroli once again applied his charm, and in the spacious generals' offices of the Pentagon, they found no reason to distrust two promising young businessmen who love America so much and want to help their country in the fight against terrorism. Finally, the first contract for the supply of AK-47 ammunition and grenades to the Afghans for US$600,000 was signed.

Diveroli flew to Ukraine to negotiate the supply of ammunition, and Pacous flew to Abu Dhabi for one of the largest international arms exhibitions to find new suppliers who would help close the contract in its entirety.

“I felt like the hero of some stupid movie that Diveroli forced me to do. A 20-year-old boy among Russian generals in full uniform, Arab sheikhs and serious businessmen who have entire corporations behind their backs.

Packose had only a small aluminum case and freshly printed business cards with the proud title of "VP of AEY", and he also had a goal - to get in touch with Rosoboronexport. They could solve all the problems at once and supply all the necessary ammunition from their bottomless warehouses deep in Russia. True, there was one small problem - the US State Department blacklisted Rosoboronexport for selling some unpleasant things to Iran. On the last day of the exhibition, Packows managed to meet with the Deputy Director of Rosoboronexport. He looked like a former KGB officer, constantly looking around and speaking with a subtle but colorful Russian accent. When Packows showed him the wish list, the Russian's eyebrows slowly went up.

This was the last conversation with the Russians, and there was no answer.

Russian games

Heinrich Thomet.

Well, if the Russians don't want to, there are plenty of other options! Here and there they nevertheless agreed on the supply of everything necessary; the lion's share of everything requested was found in Albania with the help of the Swiss Tomet.

A few weeks later, when Diveroli had already fully developed the delivery route to Afghanistan and managed to conclude agreements with all the countries through which the transport workers were supposed to fly, it suddenly became known that Turkmenistan had refused to provide them with its airspace. It was the shortest route to Afghanistan from Europe, and the whole scheme went to hell.

We had to look for other routes. But as soon as the talk turned to Iraq and Afghanistan, somewhere at the top something clicked, and the negotiations stalled. There was big politics involved here, and even two smart young Jews like Pacous and Diveroli couldn't figure it out. Diveroli called the embassies of the necessary countries, made his voice low and menacing, like a real warrior, and began to broadcast: “The supply of these ammunition is the most important thing for the international fight against terrorism, we are helping the Afghans to build their national state and defeat the enemies of all mankind, sign the right papers, and you will become part of history! The Pentagon and the entire diplomatic machine of the United States joined in resolving the issue - the necessary permits were obtained.

“We do not demand age restrictions on ammunition! We accept ammunition of all years of manufacture! - they wrote in letters to suppliers. The Pentagon did not care about the quality of the products supplied. It was supposed to be used by the local Afghan police and the Afghan national army, which they have tried unsuccessfully to make effective over the past 6 years. Who cares if a cartridge explodes in the barrel of a couple of Afghans and injures them in the face, or a grenade flies not into the Taliban trench, but under the shooter's feet?

New problems in Albania

Business moved forward and up. Pacous and Diveroli bought themselves new cars to match their status as major arms dealers and moved into neighboring apartments in a luxury building overlooking the ocean. In the evenings, the newly-minted armory barons went down to the pool in the courtyard of their house and tried to relax a little. There were always a lot of people here - lawyers, successful clerks, start-ups and young brokers from the stock exchange littered with money, girls sunbathed topless, expensive champagne flowed like water.

And, of course, drugs, just mountains of drugs.
At that time, it seemed to them that they could work without doping
in this mode is simply impossible.

Through incredible efforts, AEY was able to launch the entire scheme for the supply of weapons and ammunition to Afghanistan from Albania. The whole scheme was clean: Tomet registered an offshore company in Cyprus that bought ammunition from the Albanian government and then sold it to AEY, who, in turn, put it at the disposal of the US government. Not a very long multi-move, but it worked - formally, all the ammunition became clean, and the deal ceased to be subject to any restrictions. The US government was not involved in dealing with corrupt and semi-mafia Albania; all the dirty work was done by intermediaries.

In Albania, there was an AEY representative named Alex Podrizki, another old acquaintance of the guys from the synagogue in Miami Beach. His task was to resolve all issues on the spot, and soon one of these issues required immediate intervention. In his preliminary calculations for the deal, Pacous did not take into account the ever-increasing price of aviation fuel, and, as you understand, aircraft loaded with ammunition to the eyeballs require a hell of a lot of this fuel. Then they decided to repack the cartridges from wooden and metal boxes into cardboard boxes. Permission from the Pentagon to change the packaging was obtained, and Alex Podrizki began to look for a local cardboard magnate who could repack millions of cartridges in a short time. His name was Kosta Trebicka - he owned a small cardboard factory and undertook to organize the work of repacking ammunition.

On March 27, 2008, a fresh issue of The New York Times was released - with photographs of cartridges that AEY imported to Afghanistan.

When Podriski came to inspect the work, he discovered another unpleasant detail: all the cartridges were Chinese, marked with characters. Packowse almost had a stroke. Close ties between the countries of the socialist bloc in the distant 1970s, when they dumped all sorts of military stuff on the cheap to each other, have now played a bad joke on AEY. Of course, these cartridges were no worse than the Soviet ones, they shot in the same way and could kill people, but in the contract with the government it was written in black and white: "No Chinese ammunition." It was a purely political decision, the US does not buy weapons from China, period. Pacous sent a formal request to the Pentagon to see if he could supply Chinese munitions that had entered Albania decades before the embargo. The answer was clear - only with the personal permission of the President of the United States. It was impossible to get it.

Finally, the first transporter with 5 million rounds of 7.62x39 caliber on board took off in the sky over Albania. For unknown reasons, halfway to Afghanistan, during one of the intermediate landings in Kyrgyzstan, the plane was delayed. Packows was on the phone again - the American embassy in Bishkek, the State Department in Washington, the Department of Defense. Endless calls and hot persuasion. Two weeks later, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates himself went to Kyrgyzstan for talks to resolve the issue of further deliveries of military equipment for warring Afghanistan. The issue was resolved positively, and the board with the cartridges again took to the air.

Transport planes took off from airfields all over Eastern Europe and, loaded to the brim with ammunition, lay down on a course for Kabul. The military in Kabul accepted the incoming cargo without question, everyone was happy: the cartridges were in good condition - it shoots, okay. The whole scheme was worked out and no longer gave serious failures. Millions of dollars were regularly flowing from the pockets of American taxpayers through the Pentagon directly into the AEY account, and the entire large contract of 300 million was slowly fulfilled. Diveroli was rich, Pacous was about to be rich. They succeeded.

Friendship is friendship, and tobacco apart

Once the business got underway properly, Packows allowed himself to relax a bit. He no longer had to work hard for 18 hours a day and constantly hang on the phone, organizing interaction with dozens of different people. He started coming to the office late and leaving early. Ephraim, a workaholic, didn't like it very much, and when it came up again about the commissions due to Packows for a new deal, he told him: “I'm not going to give you all the money, you've been relaxing lately. It's time to revise our agreements." Although AEY already had millions of dollars in its accounts, Diveroli was not going to part with them so easily. Packose was not in the best position for negotiations - all the conditions for the joint work of the two arms dealers were sealed only by a handshake, they did not officially conclude any contracts, and there were no arguments for a dispute with the actual and formal owner of the company.

But Packose honestly earned this money, and he decided to go for broke: he threatened his partner with tax harassment, and also recalled that so far only the two of them know that Chinese cartridges are flying to Kabul, which are prohibited for circulation by the US Government. Diveroli said that he would work out a mutually beneficial agreement, but further communication between the two partners was carried out only in the presence of lawyers.

Although he lost some money and some "friend", Packows also gained something more - he had an excellent experience of participating in Government competitions. Less than a month later, he opened his own office, Dynacore Industries, which loudly declared on its website that it had experience working with the State Department, the Pentagon, and the armies of Iraq and Afghanistan. Friends became rivals, and Pacous even bought himself a powerful .357 caliber revolver, fearing that Diveroli would simply prefer to order it rather than pay him all the money owed.

Collapse of AEY

Lieutenant Colonel Amanuddin examines cartridges that are over forty years old. Photo by The NYT.

The sudden rise of two Miami Beach suckers upset the serious people in the industry and they decided to put them in their place. One of the major arms dealers (whose name was withheld in the interests of the investigation) told the Government that AEY was supplying the Iraqi army with Chinese AK-47s. These accusations had nothing to do with reality, but launched the millstones of the law enforcement machine to its fullest. They began to closely monitor the activities of the company and accumulate evidence of their illegal actions.

On August 23, 2007, the same day that Diveroli and Pacous signed the agreement, federal agents raided the AEY office. Everything happened in the Hollywood style that Diveroli liked so much: hefty men in masks ordered everyone not to move, pointed guns at them and began to seize computer hard drives and folders with documents.

The most damaging piece of evidence was apparently the emails that Diveroli and Pacous exchanged with their man in Albania about Chinese markings on ammunition. Without them, there would not have been any criminal case, it would have been possible to successfully deny all the accusations.

When, after some time, Packose was called in for questioning, the agents frankly laughed at his naivety.

“Man, you broke the law and knew about it, couldn’t you get yourself a new mailbox on Gmail?”

In an attempt to avoid full responsibility, Packose agreed to a deal with the investigation, just like Alex Podrizki did. Diveroli alone stood firm and refused to testify. In March 2008, a new issue of The New York Times came out with a high-profile cover story: “Arms suppliers to Afghanistan under scrutiny,” and it became clear that no one would get off lightly, everything would be serious; the case went public.

Soon Pakouzu, Diveroli and Podrizki filed charges based on irrefutable evidence - 71 counts of fraud. Pacous and Diveroli remained at large on large bail; their partner Ralph Merril was taken into custody, Heinrich Thomet, who was also charged, fled the investigation. He was last seen somewhere in Bosnia.

Diveroli less fortunate

After a thorough investigation, the court sentenced David Pakouz to seven months of house arrest (his active cooperation with the investigation affected), and Ephraim Diveroli was less fortunate. During the investigation, being under house arrest, he was subjected to a number of restrictions - in particular, he was forbidden to sell weapons and generally take them in hand. But Diveroli decided that it was impossible to leave the business. A large client appeared on the horizon, planning to buy a large batch of spare magazines for automatic rifles. Everything was legal from the point of view of the law, spare magazines are not weapons, and restrictions on bail conditions did not apply to them. The client persistently invited Diveroli to hunt alligators, but he just as persistently refused. In the end, at the next meeting, the future partner showed Diveroli his Glock, and Ephraim could not resist - he took it in his hands and skillfully inspected the condition of the barrel. This client turned out to be a fake agent provocateur ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives). The bail conditions were violated, Diveroli showed his contempt for the law, which means he should have received in full. The court sentenced him to 4 years in prison.

• Map of AEY activity and timeline from The New York Times.

Based on the results of the investigation into the activities of AEY, the government commission concluded that “when concluding a contract with AEY, the company’s qualifications were inadequately assessed, and proper control of the transaction and supervision over the fulfillment of the terms of the agreement were not carried out.” The lucrative and alluring world of the arms trade, opened up by the federal government to cheapen its costs of war in the Middle East, has been closed to small companies like AEY. They were all given a clear message that they couldn't compete with the corporations.

The young businessmen were punished according to their degree of guilt, but not a single representative of the Ministry of Defense suffered any punishment.

Neither those people who made a deal with the dubious AEY, nor those who accepted obviously illegal Chinese cartridges - nobody.

Despite such an inglorious end, gunsmiths managed to do good business. AEY provided 85 deliveries of ammunition and other ammunition to Afghanistan under contracts with the US Government in the amount of $66 million, and managed to receive orders for another $100 million. It was a very successful and profitable startup by two guys from Miami Beach.

Thailand hands over 'African death dealer' to US

'Russian' 'Viktor' 'Bout' to face US court in coming months

A Thai court has sentenced a man whom Americans consider "the world's biggest arms dealer" to be extradited to the United States. Prior to this, the Russian, known as "Victor" "Bout", spent 2 years under arrest in a Thai prison.

Recall that "Viktor" "Bout", also known as "Viktor" "Budd", "Viktor" "Bat", "Vadim" "Markovich" "Aminov", "Viktor" "Bulakin", and under other names ( more than 15 names in total - it is not known which one is real), was arrested on March 6, 2008 by the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok. His detention was the result of an operation in which agents of the North American Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) were involved.

Later it turned out that with the help of management informants, the agent managed to persuade Viktor Bout to supply Igla anti-aircraft missile systems to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). FARC is recognized as a terrorist organization that finances its activities by selling drugs: cocaine and heroin.

Previously, "Viktor" "Bout" was accused of large-scale deliveries of weapons to almost all hot spots in the world. According to an investigation published by the UN in 2000, a Russian (Viktor, according to the prosecution, has at least 2 Russian passports, one Ukrainian and one issued by the authorities of the United Arab Emirates) is the owner of the largest cargo fleet operating aircraft of the AN brand .

“A former air force officer suspected of serious ties to Russian organized crime operates the world's largest fleet of Antonov aircraft, supplies military and other essential equipment to all areas of armed conflict in Africa. In 1999, he visited several arms factories in Bulgaria, four suppliers had previously been in contact as arms exporters with the Republic of Togo. His brother, Sergei, is reportedly responsible for the day-to-day management of his Air Cess airline."

According to an investigation published in the book Death Merchant by Douglas Farah and Stephen Brown, the list of his clients is quite extensive. In the 90s, Bout was a friend and supporter of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. At the same time, he sold arms and aircraft to the Taliban, Massoud's enemies. His air fleet helped both the official government of Angola and the UNIT rebels who tried to overthrow this government. He sent a plane to rescue the leader of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko, known for his corruption and cruelty, while at the same time supporting the rebels who blocked the dictator in his hideout. He worked with the leader of Liberia, Chalse Taylor, with the FARC rebels in Colombia, with the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

At the same time, he contacted not only with corrupt leaders of third world countries. He also transported completely legal cargo for the United Nations in the same areas where he supplied weapons. He also had relations with the governments of Western countries, including the authorities of the United States of America. While the Federal Treasury tried to freeze his assets, the Pentagon and his contractors transferred millions of dollars to him for operations related to the post-war reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the moment when the President of the United States in his speech divided the world into those who help the United States and those who oppose it, Booth was on both sides. International officials felt that the way "Bout" does business - in particular, the fact that he does not care who pays, as long as he offers right price- is actually illegal.

Peter Hein, at the time the British Foreign Office official in charge of Africa, referred to "Bout" as the "African merchant of death". But Bout's deals and interests were in a gray area, and international law unable to control it.

But there have been attempts. His back and forth planes appear in many UN reports documenting arms embargo violations against Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Sierra Leone. American spy satellites photographed his planes loading crates of weapons on remote airstrips in Africa. Interpol requested his arrest at the request of Belgium on charges of arms trafficking and money laundering.

The story of "Victor" "Bout" inspired Hollywood to shoot the film "Lord of War" (Lord of War). It is believed that this Russian merchant became the prototype for the hero Nicolas Cage. The character is named "Yuri Orlov": this surname also appears in UN reports on violations of the embargo on arms supplies to hot spots - as one of the companions of "Bout". And, perhaps, this is another pseudonym for an arms dealer.

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US intelligence agencies believe that "Bout" is collaborating with the GRU, previously he was suspected of having links with the KGB. According to one version, his wife is the daughter of a high-ranking member of the State Security Committee (in Soviet times, the deputy head of the KGB). However, "Bout" himself and his wife actively deny this.

Bout's defense insists that Viktor is just an air carrier specializing in third world countries. The airports receiving the cargo should have their own control, and if the authorities of the countries where the Buta airline supplied the “goods” had no complaints, then everything is legal. Moreover, the defense emphasizes that the carrier is in no way responsible for the cargo that is loaded into the holds of its aircraft.

The supply of weapons to hot spots and the support of various rebels have always been one of the active tools of influence in the world, including for Soviet Union. Writer, publicist Oleg Grechenevsky, known for his investigations into the activities of Soviet and Russian special services, says that earlier, before the fall of the USSR, most of the weapons were supplied to third world countries for free, or on credit, the return of which was not implied (now Russia writes off with pleasure, forgives these debts, several billion dollars per country). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, ideology was replaced by business, and it was people like "Viktor" "Bout" - connected with the secret services, with connections to the leaders of third world countries - who became effective intermediaries.

The customer cannot always pay for the “goods” with money. This is especially true of various guerrilla or separatist movements, or embargoed countries. In this case, they resort to barter schemes, notes Oleg Grechnevsky. The main commodities here are drugs, or, in the case of Africa, rough diamonds.

“The pioneers here were the Americans during the Vietnam War. A scheme is known when drugs were transported directly in the coffins of dead American soldiers. Sometimes heroin was literally stuffed into corpses,” he notes.

However, the volume of drug trafficking that came from Southeast Asia was small compared to what Afghanistan was able to provide. “Before the start of the war, poppies were grown in Afghanistan, but, let's say, for domestic use - opium has been made there for centuries. But a breakthrough to the foreign market occurred only in the 80s. Under the Soviet Union, this was done in the GRU, but they tried to keep their hands clean, that is, they worked through intermediaries. And with the change of power in the country, they stopped being shy,” the expert says.

In the 90s, there were many pilots and paratroopers in the Russian political elite who went through Afghan, their affairs went uphill, and this is also not accidental, Oleg Grechevsky believes. Suffice it to recall Pavel Grachev, Alexander Rutskoy, Boris Gromov and Dzhokhar Dudayev.

At the same time, according to the expert, the arms drug mafia has now ceased to be national, has become detached from its roots. “You cannot say that this is controlled by the Russian special services, but that is controlled by the American ones. This is a clan system in which the interests of business are closely intertwined with the interests of departments. Bout probably worked for one of these clans, and became a victim of a redistribution of spheres of influence,” Grechnevsky concludes.

Source: blog.kp.ru