Lawson - Arms and the Dudes

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ALSO BY GUY LAWSON

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FROM MIAMI BEACH

BECAME THE MOST UNLIKELY

GUNRUNNERS IN HISTORY

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Copyright 2015 by Guy Lawson

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition June 2015

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Interior design by Joy OMeara

Jacket design by Christopher Lin

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014036526

ISBN 978-1-4516-6759-2

ISBN 978-1-4516-6761-5 (ebook)

For my mother, Mary

Of arms and the man I sing.

Virgil, The Aeneid

FRANCO VOGT PHOTOGRAPHY

GUY LAWSON is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning investigative journalist whose articles on war, crime, culture, and law have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Harpers , and many other publications. His Rolling Stone article on this story was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. He lives in New York with his wife and two daughters.

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Comrades in arms: David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli at the American Gun Range, Miami, 2006.

Packouz at the Eurosatory arms show, Paris, playing war, 2006.

Diveroli at Eurosatory, Paris, 2006.

When Alex Podrizki arrived in Albania in April of 2007, he discovered much of the ammunition had been manufactured in China decades earlier.

Despite its age, the ammunition was in surprisingly good condition.

To disguise the Chinese origin of the ammo, the rounds were taken from their original packaging.

The ammo was put into lightweight cardboard boxes and palletized to be shipped from Albania to Afghanistan.

The Albanian arms company MEICO was run by an official named Ylli Pinari. Credit: Gent Shkullaku

The Albanian minister of defense Fatmir Mediu. Credit: Gent Shkullaku

A businessman named Mihail Delijorgji apparently outranked the defense minister on the pricing of the ammo. Credit: Gent Shkullaku

Also involved, the dudes discovered, was the prime ministers son, Shkelzen Berisha. Credit: Gent Shkullaku

The repacking was being done by an Albanian businessman named Kosta Trebicka.

Until Trebicka was kicked off the deal and went to the New York Times and federal prosecutors in America with claims of corruption involving powerful Albaniansand was soon found dead. Credit: Gent Shkullaku

Because of a lack of safety precautions in a deal run by the same politicians selling ammo to AEY, an ammunition dump in the Albanian village of Grdec exploded, killing twenty-six civilians. Credit: Gent Shkullaku

On March 27, 2008, a front-page story in the New York Times appeared with a photograph of ammo AEY shipped to Afghanistanthough the rounds pictured werent Chinese and they werent from Albania.

The mug shots of Packouz and Diveroli that appeared in the New York Times . Credit: Miami-Dade Police Department