Lawyers, Guns and Money

That would be a perfect title for The Efraim Diveroli Story...




The exemplary Lindsay Beyerstein has some fine reporting on this saga at Majikthise:

Records from the Florida Secretary of State show that Efraim's father, Michael Diveroli, is the manager and registered agent of Worldwide Tactical, LLC, located at 925 41 St. (Ste. 106), Miami Beach, Florida. Diveroli was also the registered agent and president of the now-defunct Advantage Police Supply, LLC, principal office 925 41st St. (Ste. 306).

Efraim Diveroli's company, AEY, gave the same address to the Miami Dade County procurement office.

AEY also provided that address, down to the 306 suite number, when it was awarded a multi-million dollar contract with the Army in 2007.

Michael Diveroli's Worldwide Tactical, LLC has been awarded over a million dollars in federal contracts since 2000, records show. Worldwide Tactical also got an emergency two-year contract in 2006 to supply cots to the State of Louisiana. Worldwide Tactical recently renewed a contract to provide cold weather search and rescue gear for Lincoln/Lancaster County, Nebraska.

What I find remarkable about this story is that this neophyte kid was able to secure $1 million+ in government contracts seemingly without the now customary pattern of contributions to the Republican Party or right wing causes. I checked both Newsmeat and OpenSecrets (for some reason Opensecrets' website is down this AM). I found nothing for the Diveroli Family or Uncle Bar-Kochba Botach. The only player in this saga with any clear record of political contributions is Efraim Diveroli's lawyer, Hy Shapiro. Over the past 15 years Shapiro has contributed $3250. All of it went to Democrats.

In my prior post I alluded to the many consumer complaints against Botach Tactical ("WE WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD!") That's the LA co. owned by Diveroli's Uncle Bar-Kochba Botach. Here's a sampling: At ResellerRatings.com Botach Tactical's lifetime rating is 2.04 out of 10. Sample entries on Complaints.com here and here. Pissedoffconsumer has more. There are also entries at RipoffReport and Epinions. Finally, there's this story about how Botach brazenly off a supplier's (!) product design.

-AF
+Update: Makithise has more dope on the Diverolis and Botach Tactical plus the news that young Efraim has fled the country rather than face the music here as well as testify before Congress.

Grandpa Sez: Jealous Competitors Dropped A Dime On "Boy Genius" Arms Dealer

By now you've probably heard of AEY and 22 year-old international arms dealer Efraim Diveroli. After an internship at his uncle's shady Botach Tactical (I googled Botach only to find many complaints), the then 18 year-old Diveroli took over his father's business AEY. He submit the low bid and won a $300 million DOD munitions contract to be the main supplier to Afghan forces.

It's a great story of a young buck living the American dream, right? Until an Army field investigation documented an act of fraud by AEY, it was. Diveroli's "Hungarian" ammo was Chinese - a clear violation of his contract. Much of it was useless being 40-50 years-old. TPM has the Army's March 25 audit letter suspending Diveroli's contract and notifying him of their investigation here.

Strangely, there seems to have been no background check of young Efraim. As The Miami Herald reports:

While living on Miami Beach, AEY's youthful president has had several run-ins with the law, Miami-Dade court records show.

Since 2005, Diveroli has physically assaulted and harassed a former girlfriend and beaten up a valet parker at his office building. Then when searched by police, he was found to be carrying a fake Florida driver's license that indicated he was four years older.

All the cases have been dismissed or resolved.

Theses cases may have been "resolved." But his fake ID alone should have precluded Diveroli from doing business with the US Government. Pay it no mind. According to Grandpa, this is not young Efraim's fault. It's "jealously" that has his grandson jammed up. CNN has the poop via affiliate WPLG:

"The kid is dedicated and patriotic," Diveroli's grandfather, Angelo, told Local 10 senior political reporter Michael Putney via telephone. "He's all over the world getting what the military needs. The big corporations are jealous, so they want to destroy him."

Ahh yes, the old "I'm being attacked by jealous big businesses 'cuz I'm making millions selling illegal, useless ammo" defense. Let me know how it works out for young Efraim willya Grandpa? CNN affiliate WFOR had these gems from a not-so-proud Pop:

"I would prefer he became a nice Jewish doctor or lawyer rather than an arms dealer. He's never asked for my approval on the company. He doesn't always take my advice, I don't influence him. As a father of a boy genius he's hard to control."

Perhaps you should have thought of that before you allowed your son to morph your "small printing co." into an shady international arms dealership.

You just can't make this shit up folks.

-AF

+Note: What's unusual about Diveroli's ability to secure the contract to supply munitions to Afghan forces is that it appears for once that this is a case of a contractor submitting the lowest bid. I spent part of yesterday checking Open Secrets and Newsmeat for any pattern of contributions to Republican or Far Right causes. I found nothing.

++Raw Story has more (tho' crediting themselves for AEY's website shutdown goes a little too far -- It's as if Raw was the only team calling AEY).