Associated Press
An AEY shipment contained mixed types of ammunition in poor condition.
Associated Press
Efraim E. Diveroli.
Posted on 04/26/2008 10:37:04 PM PDT by neverdem
MOSCOW — The United States Army has begun a broad review of procedures used to supply security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq with foreign arms, prompted by an allegation of fraud and questions about the competence of the main private supplier of ammunition to Afghanistan.
The company, AEY Inc. of Miami Beach, was suspended last month after Army investigators accused it of shipping aged Chinese rifle cartridges and claiming they were Hungarian.
The Army decided to review its contracting procedures as several arms-industry officials said that long before the suspension, it was clear the Army had erred by not recognizing risk factors in AEY’s history and activities, and by being lured by a very low bid.
Problems with the contract...
--snip--
The low-price assumptions, the industry officials said, appeared to be what had led Mr. Diveroli to Albania, where the government sold its munitions for as little as 2.2 cents a round, a price that strongly suggested their age and poor condition.
Ed Grasso, president of Sellier & Bellot USA, which has provided new Czech ammunition to Afghanistan, said new rifle cartridges of the types AEY bought typically cost 20 cents to 30 cents a round.
By early this year, Mr. Diveroli seemed to be desperately searching for munitions, three dealers said. He turned up in Las Vegas in February at the SHOT show, which calls itself the world’s largest firearms exhibition.
He went booth to booth, seeking suppliers to fill the Army’s orders, including those for shoulder-fired rockets, they said. “He was looking to buy RPG-7 rounds, and let me tell you, he wanted to pay $30 for these things,” one dealer said. “You can’t get that item for that price, not if you’re buying quality.”
A round for an RPG-7, the dealer said, typically costs $60 to $85...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Isn’t that 7.62x54R ammo?
Yup. Seeing as it was for use in the ‘Stan, it’s the right ammo.
Just the wrong source.
I’m lucky to find nice Russian ammo in the span can for 93 to 100 USD a can.
This clown thought he could buy and ship it for less than 0.20 USD each. I guess he missed the cost rise in copper and brass....
How much you want to bet some new diversity hire out of college let the contract to these flunkies? I'm sure that there is some old professional who lost his job to this new one who is out there having a beer and laughing his butt off over this whole mater.
And, oh bye the way, why was it up to a news paper reporter to figure it out unless someone in the administration was planning a do over after spending 300 million and saying “oops, we made a mistake and we need to spend another 300 million again”.
Time to get out of this mistake by sending the congress and the administration over there to fight (with their families)!
Military made a BIG MISTAKE closing the army arsenals
I once pointed out on the FR that during WWII we supplied ammo for 12 million man military plus leftovers to help Britain, Soviet Union, and even China. Would you believe some globalist freeper argued that we did not have the capacity to build ammo before WWII and that we needed time to ramp up, thus using WWII to illustrate the folly of outsourcing our manufacturing base is invalid. What these globalist/free traitors fail to understand is that during WWIIn it took us several months to convert existing manufacturing base to make ammo. Today we must spend several years to build a factory to make mass produce ammo while in the 1940’s it took several months to converst an existing lipstick factory to mass produce ammo. Don’t even get me started when DoD decided that replacing our war reserves with a just in time logistics of Walmart. The unspoken word was many generals and civilian logisticians opposed the move, but the political appointees from private globalist corporate America touted their Harvard degrees plus political connections over ruled the government experts in order to find savings to reduce the DoD budget. Rumsfeld did not help the situation when he attempted to “transform” the Army.
Their parent organization, the DNC, and their puppets in Congress, San Fran Nan and Hairy Reed (sic), have been clamoring for "competitive bids" on all things military because of ... hide the children ... Halliburton!
Well THIS is what you get. 'Cause Dorothy you and Toto ain't in Kansas any more. The low bid IS the low bid. And just try denying them the contract after the public bid opening, go ahead, I double dog dare you.
(Only once in 38 yrs have I personally seen a low bid rejected - and that went to court. I've seen cases where all were rejected but that's a different animal)
He’s not having a beer, he’s having white Zinfandel.
That’s too bad, looks like he bought up all the spam can 7.62x52R that until a couple of years ago we were buying for $60 for a case of 880 rounds.
And buying Chinese military is a no-no. In Canada you can buy Norinco guns dirt cheap, but it is prohibited to import those into the US now.
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