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my name is David pacus and I'm a former
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arms dealer I was arrested for
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trafficking $300 million worth of arms
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internationally and this is how crime
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works there's a lot more stuff going on
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behind the scenes than people think and
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usually with the consent of the major
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Powers involved when we started winning
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big contracts that's when I really
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started feeling like we were uh treading
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in deep Waters I feel like I got
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incredibly lucky I went through a crazy
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experience and I managed to avoid
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getting killed and I managed to avoid
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doing prison time and for that I am
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eternally grateful and I got a really
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cool movie made about my life and how
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many people can say that
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right well I never expected to become an
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arms dealer that's for sure I was uh in
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my early 20s going to college studying
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chemistry and working part-time as a
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massage therapist and I had a few side
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businesses selling SD cards online
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selling bed sheets and linens and towels
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to nursing homes and then I bumped into
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a friend of mine that I had known since
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I was a kid uh guy named epim dveri and
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his company was called aey Inc we
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started out as friends every waking
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moment we had we were slaving away
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trying to win contracts deliver on
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contracts finding sources so we saw this
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solicitation posted on the government
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website and it was all Munitions so it
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wasn't for weapons it was all for the
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stuff that gets fired by the weapons
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it's like 150 million rounds for the
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AK-47 30 million rounds for the PKM
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machine gun 1.1 million grenades
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something like 70,000 anti-ar Rockets
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the quantities were enormous we'd never
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seen anything even close to this this
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particular contract was going to the
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Afghan National Army it was being
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supplied by the US Army because we had
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invaded Afghanistan stand after
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September 11th the Bush Administration
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decided to arm the Afghans to the teeth
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so that they wouldn't have to worry
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about running out of Munitions if the
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next Administration would pull out of
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Afghanistan legally the Contracting
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officer in the federal government are
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not allowed to tell you what the other
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competitors bid at but the Contracting
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officer told me over the phone you know
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we really want to help you guys out
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because we want to see you succeed you
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guys were just so incredibly competitive
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you came in $52 million under the next
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competitor we were competing against
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multi-billion dollar publicly traded
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companies with like 70 years of
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experience they did a series of audits
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on our company and that included a
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financial audit they wanted to see we
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had a whole bunch of money Logistics
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audit they also had a supply audit where
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they asked us to list all of our
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suppliers you are required to provide
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documentation uh as far as where it's
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coming from from and where it's going to
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so they will require an EU which is an
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end user certificate the issue is if a
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military loses control of their
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equipment then it doesn't matter how
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many end user certificates they signed
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it may end up in the hands of someone
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that was not intended you saw videos of
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the Taliban riding American Humvees and
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shooting American weapons including all
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the Munitions that we shipped to
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Afghanistan when we won the contract it
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felt amazing uh f from picked me up and
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he he told me he's like get dressed
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we're going to celebrate and he takes me
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to this uh Italian restaurant he orders
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a whole bunch of champagne for the table
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people think it was just you know all
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fun and games and we're just going out
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there and partying it up in Miami and
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doing drugs and meeting women and
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whatever and there's a small element of
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that but we actually worked a lot more
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than we partied before I got into this
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business I didn't know anything about
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arms I never even owned the gun when we
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started winning big contracts and start
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getting affected by the international
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political situation that's when I really
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started feeling like we were uh treading
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in deep
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Waters so the United States is actually
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the biggest arms manufacturer in the
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world uh by far and uh biggest arms
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exporter in the world so there's two
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major calibers in the world uh that's
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two different weapon systems there's the
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Warsaw PCT which is manufactured by the
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former Soviet Union
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republics and there's NATO which is
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manufactured by the NATO alliance the
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west and they're not intercompatibility
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because there was the infamous tanaman
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Square massacre they also placed Russia
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on an arms embargo shortly before they
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awarded us the contract originally the
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United States was planning to buy all
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the Munitions directly from Russia
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because they were the only single
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supplier that could Supply the entire uh
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list of Munitions that the United States
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was looking to buy and that's why they
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put the contract out for bid uh for a
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broker like us to give them a single
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price for everything because they didn't
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want to deal with 50 people so they
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would rather deal with the middleman who
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dealt with all the uh end suppliers for
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them for the small caliber ammunition
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which was the 762 x39 ammo the
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ammunition used by the AK-47 which is
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the standard assault rifle of the Warsaw
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pack the best um uh price that we got
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was from the country of Albania at the
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time Albania had a massive stockpile of
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forcea packed ammunition and they were
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trying to join the NATO alliance and
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NATO was requiring them to get rid of
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all their old uh Soviet ammunition I
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think that there's probably more labor
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law violations making clothing than
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there are making arms the the issue with
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the arms industry as far as uh worker
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safety is that they are manufacturing
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dangerous goods and obviously
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manufacturers want to avoid disasters
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like that because it's bad for business
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it's not good for their bottom line when
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their Factory blows up so they they do
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care about avoiding things like that on
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the other hand uh there was an Infamous
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occurrence in Albania uh at a town
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called gerdek where the Albanian
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government was in the process of
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dismantling some of their old Soviet era
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ammunition they were doing it in an
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irresponsible way and it caused I think
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the largest non-nuclear explosion in
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history the way the Albanian deal
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happened for us is that we had beening
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doing business with a Swiss Arms Dealer
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named Henry to uh in the movie he's
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played by Bradley Cooper and he was very
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connected particularly in the Balkans
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and that's how he was able to get this
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deal for the AK-47 ammo uh at such a
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good price for us we were paying Henry
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and Henry was paying the
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albanians we met Henry through our
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investor eim didn't have that money and
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so he was looking for investors and his
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father introduced him to to someone that
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he had done business with a guy named
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Ralph Merill so Ralph had been doing
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business with Henry since the early 90s
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Henry tried to keep as low of a profile
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as possible you would never look at him
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twice just passing him on the street he
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looked like a bank teller there are many
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middlemen involved in the arms trade and
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uh you usually only discover them when
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they get busted by some ious law
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enforcement operation Victor buot is the
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most famous middleman he's the Russian
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arms dealer that Nicholas Cage's
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character in Lord Of War is based on
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most
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middlemen try to operate as much as they
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can within the limits of the law it's
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just less risky that way and Henry was
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the same way I mean he still has to
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worry about the International System and
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the various uh organizations that may
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want to interfere with his uh business
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transactions and so he has to arrange
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his Logistics and his sources of
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Supply uh with that in
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mind it was a team of people that would
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open up the wooden crates open up the
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metal tins put the ammunition into these
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thick plastic bags and put it into these
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double walled corrugated cardboard boxes
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that way we were able to minimize the
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shipping weight because we were shipping
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everything by air into Afghanistan
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because Afghanistan is surrounded by
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unstable countries and it's very
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dangerous to do arms shipment over land
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to Afghanistan Alex was my best friend
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uh when we were looking for someone to
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manage the repackaging situation in
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Albania uh we hired him to go over there
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and do that at first we didn't know we
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would be doing repackaging but uh we
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wanted him to just go there and inspect
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it cuz he had some military experience
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and then he discovered that the
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ammunition was Chinese origin there were
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Chinese markings all over the wooden
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crates and all over the metal tints
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ephraim's like listen we're only going
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to be talking about this over the phone
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okay just in case we can't no emails no
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text messages but then efim wanted to
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make sure that Alex was giving him
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correct information so he insisted that
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Alex email him pictures of the boxes of
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the crates then everyone just started
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talking about it openly and and uh there
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built up quite a few number of emails
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where it was very very um obvious and
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specific about what we were doing we
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just didn't want to take the risk of
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losing a $300 million contract and so we
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thought well you know maybe we shouldn't
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tell them maybe we should just repackage
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the ammunition so they don't suspect a
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thing and so that's what we did we hired
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an Albanian guy named Costa trishka who
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owned a cardboard box Manufacturing
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Company in Albania to provide the boxes
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and to provide the labor to repackage
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the ammunition to get rid of all the
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Chinese markings and uh we started
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delivering it uh in that configuration
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it was about 100 million rounds that we
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had to to repackage we weren't 100% sure
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it was illegal because the ammunition we
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were buying from Albania had originally
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come from China but it had come from
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China in the 70s which is well before
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the arms embargo was actually put in
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place so this ammunition didn't violate
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the terms of the arms embargo it was
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legal as far as the terms of the arms
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embargo but it did violate the terms of
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our commercial contract with the Army if
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we had were going to deliver this ammo
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it was going to be a breach of contract
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because our contract specifically said
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no Chinese ammo period where they stored
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all the weapons and ammo were in under
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uh the small arms anyway were in
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underground bunkers they built a massive
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Network in Albania of underground
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bunkers and they filled that with all
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the small arms and ammunition in order
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to protect them against bombardment so
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so when we went over there to inspect it
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uh that's where they took us to these
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really long narrow underground bunkers
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anyone who knows the history of Albania
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would know that the vast majority of
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their Munitions came from China us as a
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couple of kids from Miami we didn't know
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this the US Army should have known it
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whether they knew it from the beginning
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I don't know but I do know when Ralph
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went to trial internal government emails
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got uh submitted and the Army said these
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Munitions are critical for the mission
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in Afghanistan once the New York Times
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published a very embarrassing article
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and exposed the whole situation and then
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they pretended like they had no idea and
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they canceled our
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contract there are plenty of
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opportunities for corruption at every
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step of the game but in the logistics uh
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sphere it is particularly vulnerable to
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that people are desperate to get their
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goods moved from one place to another
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because you need flyover permits from
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each country that you transport military
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hardware over over their airspace we
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couldn't do a single delivery until
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every single country between Albania and
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Afghanistan gave us flyover permission
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Turkmenistan refused to give us flyover
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permission and then I realized that
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Turkmenistan has a national airline and
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they offer cargo delivery services so I
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got a cargo delivery quote from them for
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to transport the the ammunition from
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Albania to Afghanistan they gave us a
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quote which was surprisingly competitive
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and then the next day after we accepted
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the quote
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turkistan uh issued the flyover permit
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so all it took was uh a bit of a
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financial incentive one uh uh a fishy
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situation that we uh that we saw in the
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Logistics we had a 747 cargo aircraft
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loaded with about half a million
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$600,000 worth of AK-47 ammo land in
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kyrgystan to refuel kyrgystan is to the
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north of Afghanistan and the United
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States has a Air Force Base over there
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that they use as a staging Point into
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Afghanistan the kyrgystani government
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claimed that we didn't have all the
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proper licenses and they impounded the
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plane in our shipment and we knew that
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we had all the proper licenses because
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the uh pilot wouldn't have taken off
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otherwise so we were wondering what was
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going on and it turned out that they
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were trying to raise the rent on the Air
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Force Base eventually they renegotiated
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they doubled the rent on the Air Force
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Base I think to $60 million a year and
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then they released our aircraft so we
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were kind of Pawns in this kind of
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strong armed tactics to try to squeeze
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more money out of the federal government
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out of the US government it was
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definitely a situation where we thought
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that uh there were various political
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maneuverings going on that we had no
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idea what was happening and we had no
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control over it either and all we could
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do is just inform the state department
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and the US Army about it and hope that
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they uh kicked it up a few levels in the
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chain of command and uh uh get get it
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straightened out which they eventually
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did in the kyani situation
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when things started going well and we
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started delivering uh on a regular basis
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and Costa the alanian Box guy was doing
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the repackaging we were delivering three
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four aircraft loads a week epim decided
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that he wanted to squeeze more money out
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of the deal as he always did he asked
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Costa the Box guy if he could find out
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what the ministry of defense was paying
00:15:25
for the ammunition that we were buying
00:15:27
because we were paying Henry the Swiss
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Arms Dealer and we weren't paying the
00:15:32
albanians directly so Costa comes back a
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few days later and he says your
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ammunition uh is getting paid two cents
00:15:40
a round to the ministry of defense and
00:15:43
we were paying Henry 4 cents a round so
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that pissed off uh Ephraim to no end and
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so Ephraim decides to go over to Albania
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to try to renegotiate with the with the
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albanians and try to to strike a deal
00:15:55
directly with them he asks me to forge a
00:15:58
whole bunch of docu ments to make it
00:15:59
look like the albanians competitors our
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other suppliers were uh giving us much
00:16:04
better prices than they actually were it
00:16:06
is uh surprisingly easy to forge
00:16:09
documents uh particularly if you already
00:16:11
have a legitimate document and all you
00:16:14
have to do is change some numbers on it
00:16:16
and he takes those documents to the
00:16:19
albanians and he says look if you don't
00:16:21
give me a better price I'm going to have
00:16:23
to go with with your competition with
00:16:25
the Czech people with the ukrainians and
00:16:28
they'll albanians take one look at it
00:16:30
and he's like that's those documents are
00:16:31
all fake don't show me your fake
00:16:34
documents and so they knew right away
00:16:36
they arrange a meeting with a guy named
00:16:38
Mikel deori so Ephraim meets with deori
00:16:42
and uh and another guy who was at the
00:16:45
meeting who um he recognized later as
00:16:48
being the uh the prime minister's son
00:16:51
delori tells Ephraim you know I know you
00:16:53
want a better price on the ammo and I
00:16:56
also know that you are paying this
00:16:59
Albanian guy Costa to do the
00:17:01
repackaging so why don't you give me
00:17:05
that contract to do the repackaging I'll
00:17:07
make money on the repackaging contract
00:17:10
and then I could give you a little
00:17:11
discount on the ammo because you know
00:17:13
I'm making money
00:17:14
elsewhere and uh efim said that's a
00:17:17
great idea that guy's fired you're hired
00:17:20
let's do this Costa calls me up the box
00:17:23
guy calls me up and he says hey you know
00:17:25
I understand you guys are switching
00:17:27
suppliers to do the repackaging
00:17:29
I understand it's it's business but I
00:17:32
got stuck with $20,000 worth of boxes I
00:17:34
tell e why don't you pay coast to 20
00:17:36
grand and get the boxes transferred and
00:17:38
E's like nah what's he GNA
00:17:40
do and I said well he knows everything
00:17:43
right and I said are you sure you want
00:17:45
to do that eim he's like yeah he's not
00:17:47
going to do anything so it turned out he
00:17:49
was wrong right because Costa got really
00:17:52
upset over that $20,000 worth of boxes
00:17:56
and he called up the New York Times and
00:17:58
and that's how the New York Times
00:18:00
started an investigation on us that
00:18:02
ultimately L led to our downfall and he
00:18:05
called up the local Albanian press and
00:18:08
informed the Albanian journalists that
00:18:11
the Albanian politicians were getting
00:18:13
kickbacks from our
00:18:16
contract and one or two weeks later he
00:18:20
ended up dead in mysterious
00:18:22
circumstances he uh was on a dirt road
00:18:26
in the middle of a field no one else
00:18:28
around
00:18:29
and somehow he had been run over by his
00:18:32
own car they found him fa down in the
00:18:35
dirt with his car rolled like 30 feet
00:18:37
away from him uh so yeah I mean if it
00:18:40
was an accident it's a very strange
00:18:41
accident I think that Albania has a very
00:18:44
long history of organized crime and that
00:18:47
the organized crime is intimately
00:18:49
involved in the political system I am
00:18:52
definitely not going to Albania ever uh
00:18:54
I think I'm going to stay out of that
00:18:56
country for you know just in case I am
00:18:59
not worried about it anymore because
00:19:01
that was
00:19:04
uh about 18 years ago and a lot of the
00:19:07
people involved ended up going to prison
00:19:09
in Albania so Dilly yorgi he ended up
00:19:12
going to prison Y panari which is the
00:19:14
guy who was the head of the export
00:19:15
company ended up going to prison the
00:19:18
prime minister's son actually ended up
00:19:20
suing me for defamation the court case
00:19:23
ended up getting tossed out
00:19:30
definitely the more illegal it is the
00:19:32
higher the profit percentage is I mean
00:19:34
that's just the nature of business the
00:19:36
higher the risk the greater the reward
00:19:38
the Vagner group from Russia makes some
00:19:40
of the most profits in the world uh in
00:19:43
the arms business they provide military
00:19:45
services to dictators in exchange for
00:19:48
access to gold and diamond mines every
00:19:50
arms deal is unique in the example of
00:19:54
our contract uh to to supply Afghanistan
00:19:58
Henry he was paying 2 cents a round to
00:20:00
the Albanian government we were paying
00:20:02
him 4 cents
00:20:04
round uh it cost us about 5 cents per
00:20:07
round to do the
00:20:09
shipping and we were selling it to the
00:20:11
United States government for about 10
00:20:13
and a. half cents so we were making one
00:20:16
and A5 cents in profit so about 15%
00:20:20
profit margin on that ammunition in
00:20:23
total in all business there's always the
00:20:26
element for uh
00:20:29
um exploitative people and organizations
00:20:32
to take advantage of the less
00:20:35
fortunate uh in our case when delori
00:20:39
took over the repackaging operation he
00:20:42
actually had the Albanian military use
00:20:45
soldiers to do the repackaging operation
00:20:48
and I highly doubt he paid them anything
00:20:50
more than they were already getting paid
00:20:52
with their very low salary as soldiers
00:20:55
while Costa who was a private
00:20:57
businessman actually had to pay his
00:20:59
workers a normal wage uh they weren't
00:21:02
getting a government salary as as
00:21:05
military personnel so he had he was
00:21:08
making a lot less
00:21:13
money so the New York Times published
00:21:17
their article March 2008 and it was a
00:21:20
very unflattering article it was there
00:21:22
was a picture of Rusty looking
00:21:24
ammunition on the front page of the New
00:21:26
York Times next to ephraim's mugshot it
00:21:29
was uh Bulgarian
00:21:30
ammunition that uh we had that eim had
00:21:33
bought sight unseen because it was only
00:21:35
a very small quantity and we had some
00:21:36
extra room on the flight from Bulgaria
00:21:40
uh because we were buying the grenades
00:21:41
from Bulgaria uh it was corroded and and
00:21:44
U barely functioned and the the
00:21:47
receiving officer in Kabul took one look
00:21:49
at it and said I'm not paying for this
00:21:50
rejected the uh the rece receiving it
00:21:54
however the they they didn't have any
00:21:57
ammunition recycling facil ities in
00:21:58
Afghanistan and they didn't want to pay
00:22:00
for it to get shipped back so what they
00:22:02
did is they moved they moved the ammo to
00:22:04
the side of the airport and just let it
00:22:06
to continue corroding and rotting in the
00:22:08
open air and so that's when everything
00:22:11
really fell apart the justice department
00:22:13
raided ae's offices I had already left
00:22:16
at that point because efim informed me
00:22:18
he uh didn't feel like paying me either
00:22:21
and so I quit the the justice department
00:22:23
said well you guys knew that the true
00:22:25
place of of origin was China and not
00:22:28
only did you know but you had a whole
00:22:29
repackaging operation to disguise that
00:22:32
fact and so each certificate of
00:22:34
conformance that you submitted to the
00:22:36
government is an act of Fraud and you
00:22:39
delivered 71 aircraft loads of this
00:22:43
Chinese ammunition so that's 71 acts of
00:22:47
Fraud and each one can get you up to
00:22:49
five years in prison so you're looking
00:22:50
at 355 years or you can plead guilty and
00:22:56
if you plead guilty we'll combine 70 one
00:22:58
a into one and then you're only looking
00:23:00
at 5 years maximum so I pled guilty and
00:23:05
uh I feel very very fortunate I only got
00:23:07
sentenced to seven months of house
00:23:08
arrest I didn't do any prison time uh
00:23:11
epim probably would have gotten
00:23:13
somewhere along the same lines maybe a
00:23:15
little more but he um just couldn't stay
00:23:18
out of the arms business eventually he
00:23:21
got entrapped by the ATF into picking up
00:23:23
a handgun but he hired the best lawyers
00:23:26
in Miami and got it negotiated down to
00:23:28
like four years I mean of course I felt
00:23:31
betrayed he was supposedly my best
00:23:32
friend and all the previous contracts
00:23:35
that we had won uh he took the profits
00:23:38
that I was supposed to get paid on that
00:23:40
and rolled it into the next contract to
00:23:42
finance it because the way he put it was
00:23:44
listen I'm using my money to finance
00:23:45
these contracts you should use your your
00:23:47
money and you just made a bunch of money
00:23:49
on this contract and we just won this
00:23:50
other contract so why don't we take the
00:23:52
money from that contract and use it to
00:23:53
finance the next one and then the next
00:23:55
one and then the next one and then and
00:23:57
then the final one and then he decided
00:23:59
not to pay me on any of it so I didn't
00:24:02
end up making a penny from that entire
00:24:04
business we are not
00:24:07
friends uh the last time I saw him was
00:24:09
when I was suing him for the money in a
00:24:11
deposition and he pretended like he was
00:24:14
happy to see me he was like oh good to
00:24:15
see you I mean like no I know listen
00:24:19
when you give me the $5 million you owe
00:24:21
me then I'll be happy to see you maybe
00:24:24
but uh not before I feel like I got
00:24:27
incredibly lucky
00:24:29
and that I went through a crazy
00:24:31
experience and I managed to avoid
00:24:33
getting killed and I managed to avoid
00:24:35
doing prison time and for that I am
00:24:37
eternally grateful because our contract
00:24:41
created such a massive political Scandal
00:24:44
they tightened up some of the review
00:24:46
process and the background check
00:24:48
procedures that they have I I do know
00:24:51
some people who are still in the
00:24:52
government contracting business and uh
00:24:56
I've been told that it's uh not had not
00:24:58
changed that much I'm told that um that
00:25:02
cost plus contracts for example are a
00:25:04
lot more rare these days a Cost Plus
00:25:07
contract is where the government wants
00:25:09
you to create a specific product or
00:25:11
provide a specific service they'll pay
00:25:13
you everything that it costs you plus a
00:25:16
set percentage of profit so the most
00:25:18
famous example of this is lockie Martin
00:25:21
when they build the F35 fighter jet when
00:25:23
they're building a new technology
00:25:25
platform they don't know what it's going
00:25:26
to cost them to develop so they get into
00:25:28
Cost Plus contracts where whatever it
00:25:31
costs them to develop the government
00:25:32
will fund plusa an agreed upon
00:25:34
percentage of profit SpaceX has
00:25:37
contracts with NASA to uh transport
00:25:41
astronauts to the International Space
00:25:42
Station and those are all flat fee
00:25:44
contracts they develop that entire
00:25:46
capability on a flat fee basis not on a
00:25:49
Cost Plus basis uh so that's one of the
00:25:52
first major um Aerospace contracts that
00:25:55
was done on a fixed price contract
00:26:03
so the way the war doogs movie happened
00:26:05
was uh Rolling Stone published a very
00:26:08
long article about our story in 2011
00:26:12
after we were sentenced the movie
00:26:14
definitely makes it more exciting than
00:26:16
it than it was on a day-to-day basis but
00:26:19
by and large I think it it's a very well
00:26:21
done movie and I was very happy with how
00:26:22
it came out it ended up being about 70%
00:26:25
accurate I have uh 3 seconds of on
00:26:27
screen Fame in the scene where Miles
00:26:30
Teller the guy who's playing me uh is
00:26:32
trying to sell bed sheets to a nursing
00:26:34
home and like the first five minutes of
00:26:35
the movie uh there's a guy there who's
00:26:38
uh playing guitar for the old folks
00:26:40
there at the assisted living facility
00:26:43
the scene that most people ask me about
00:26:45
whether it was true was the triangle of
00:26:47
death scene and the funny thing about
00:26:49
that scene is that it actually is true
00:26:51
but with a big caveat it didn't happen
00:26:54
to us it happened to um the guy who who
00:26:58
wrote the [ __ ] screenplay his name is
00:27:01
Steven Chin we never went to Iraq there
00:27:04
was a Beretta deal which is that what
00:27:06
the whole word uh triangle of death
00:27:08
scene was based on that part is true but
00:27:10
we actually ended up defaulting on that
00:27:12
contract we never delivered on that
00:27:13
contract another scene that was
00:27:16
completely fictionalized was the scene
00:27:18
where Ephraim buys weed and then gets
00:27:20
ripped off and then pulls out a machine
00:27:23
gun and fires it in the air and you know
00:27:25
gets his 300 bucks back that never
00:27:27
happen
00:27:28
we did have automatic weapons in the
00:27:31
trunk that's true we're federal firearms
00:27:34
license holders uh so we we legally
00:27:36
allowed to have automatic weapons and we
00:27:38
would take uh fully automatic Uzi
00:27:41
submachine guns to the range and fire
00:27:44
them off at the range and everyone else
00:27:45
is popping off pistols and we'd be like
00:27:49
and everyone else would get quiet and
00:27:50
start who's
00:27:52
that so that so that was cool uh but
00:27:55
yeah but we never used it in uh in a
00:27:58
drug
00:28:03
deal there's always the risk of
00:28:05
corruption in the arms Trade A lot of it
00:28:07
is done in a very quiet manner because
00:28:12
there's a an enormous political element
00:28:14
the arms trade is always a game of cat
00:28:17
and mouse and the people who are trying
00:28:19
to get around the enforcement mechanisms
00:28:22
in the international trade are always
00:28:24
looking for loopholes and the uh people
00:28:26
enforcing it are always trying to close
00:28:28
those loopholes so I couldn't tell you
00:28:32
whether there are more loopholes open
00:28:34
now than closed ones but I'm sure
00:28:36
they're different ones Government
00:28:38
Contracting in general gives you some
00:28:40
interesting insights on what the
00:28:42
government is doing around the world
00:28:44
when I was uh doing Government
00:28:47
Contracting um I saw a contract for
00:28:50
security services for Army base in Chad
00:28:54
there is nothing about Chad in the news
00:28:57
but I saw this odd contract and I was
00:28:59
like H I wonder what's going on over
00:29:00
there and then like four months later
00:29:02
the US Army is mounting a whole
00:29:05
anti-terror operation against various
00:29:08
like Islamic groups in the region over
00:29:10
there so when you look at what the
00:29:12
government's trying to buy you can kind
00:29:14
of get a finger on the pulse of what the
00:29:16
the government is intending on doing now
00:29:19
with the outbreak of war in Ukraine the
00:29:22
United States has uh realized that a lot
00:29:24
of our industrial capacity that we were
00:29:27
relying on for large scale Wars is gone
00:29:29
because we didn't think we'd be fighting
00:29:30
another one so to supply Ukraine uh we
00:29:35
because it was such a emergency and
00:29:38
Ukraine needed it so fast and and so
00:29:40
badly uh the United States supplied its
00:29:43
own weapons from its own stockpiles and
00:29:46
then worked on replenishing its own
00:29:48
stockpiles I hope that the arms business
00:29:51
Fades into uh smaller and smaller
00:29:54
segment of the economy and eventually
00:29:56
disappears altogether at some point I
00:29:59
definitely think that Humanity can spend
00:30:02
their money on uh on much more
00:30:04
productive things than on ways of
00:30:06
killing each other unfortunately it
00:30:07
doesn't seem like conflict is going away
00:30:09
anytime soon um the Ukraine war being
00:30:12
the most glaring example of that and uh
00:30:15
I think the future of uh military
00:30:18
conflicts is probably going to be in
00:30:20
large part fought by drones and
00:30:22
automatic systems there are several
00:30:25
International Frameworks to try to live
00:30:28
MIT uh illicit arms trafficking
00:30:31
organized crime within the United States
00:30:34
and internationally is made possible
00:30:37
through the illicit arms trade the
00:30:39
cartels wouldn't be able to smuggle the
00:30:41
drugs that they do without the weapons
00:30:43
to back that up the issue with
00:30:46
International agreements is that they're
00:30:47
only as strong as the enforcement
00:30:49
mechanisms and uh there is no true
00:30:53
international law enforcement agency
00:30:56
people ask me if if they if I feel
00:31:00
guilty for supplying weapons which is a
00:31:05
uh you know a method of people killing
00:31:07
each other I would say in the case of
00:31:10
our Afghan contract I didn't feel guilty
00:31:12
at all because we were supplying the
00:31:15
people fighting the Taliban I think the
00:31:17
Taliban are uh the people of Afghanistan
00:31:20
would be better off without the Taliban
00:31:22
in power there are people out there who
00:31:24
think that any trade in the arms
00:31:26
business is evil and I don't think that
00:31:29
that is true I think that you can use uh
00:31:33
a gun to kill somebody you could also
00:31:35
use a gun to prevent yourself from being
00:31:37
killed by somebody and I do think that
00:31:39
people who are getting
00:31:41
attacked uh deserve the capability to
00:31:44
defend themselves the defense
00:31:46
industry uh like any industry is a
00:31:49
business do I think it's wrong to make
00:31:51
money off of weapons well it depends who
00:31:54
the weapons are going to
00:32:01
in my early 20s bumped into a friend of
00:32:03
mine named epim dveri and he had gotten
00:32:05
into the arms trade through his uncle
00:32:07
who owned a big pawn shop in La he was
00:32:09
about four years younger than me at the
00:32:11
time so he was actually 18 years old at
00:32:12
the time and when we bumped into each
00:32:15
other I told him about the businesses I
00:32:17
was doing and he said well you know a
00:32:19
lot of those skills can be applied to my
00:32:21
business as well because I need to find
00:32:23
suppliers overseas arrange shipping
00:32:25
Logistics financing Etc so why don't you
00:32:29
come work with me cuz I could use a
00:32:30
partner he showed me his bank account
00:32:33
and he had $1.8 million in cash in his
00:32:35
bank account after working in the
00:32:37
business for a single year so I thought
00:32:40
well he's making a lot more money than
00:32:42
me so there's something I could learn
00:32:43
here so I said I'm in teach me what you
00:32:46
know and that's how I got into the arms
00:32:48
trade we were working literally 18 hours
00:32:50
a day the way Federal Government
00:32:52
Contracting works when the United States
00:32:54
wants to buy something they have to
00:32:56
legally well with the exception of the
00:32:58
cia's black budget uh the rest of the
00:33:00
federal government has to legally post
00:33:02
what they want to buy on their public
00:33:05
website which these days is sam.gov
00:33:08
and uh then anyone who is qualified to
00:33:11
bid on those contracts can submit a bid
00:33:14
they analyze the various offers they
00:33:16
have and uh the person with the best
00:33:19
score wins the contract and gets the
00:33:21
opportunity to deliver those goods or
00:33:22
that service and collect a profit in
00:33:25
theory they're supposed to look through
00:33:27
uh the background of the companies that
00:33:29
are bidding and see if they have any
00:33:31
previous cancellations for cause and it
00:33:33
lowers the chances that you will win
00:33:35
further contracts there is definitely
00:33:36
plenty of room for improvement the issue
00:33:39
with the federal government is that
00:33:41
there are many many agencies and a lot
00:33:43
of times they don't talk to each other
00:33:45
so you can have contractors who have
00:33:48
acted in bad faith or have messed up
00:33:51
with a contract with one agency and then
00:33:52
another agency gives them a contract
00:33:54
because they didn't check the records of
00:33:56
uh of the other agencies about uh the
00:33:59
history of this particular contractor
00:34:01
any contract of under
00:34:04
$250,000 is considered a small contract
00:34:07
once you win a few of those then you
00:34:09
qualify to bid on the bigger contracts
00:34:12
on the multi-million dollar contracts
00:34:15
and uh once you win a few of those
00:34:17
you're qualified to to bid on the tens
00:34:19
and hundreds of millions of dollar
00:34:21
contracts in the space of a year and a
00:34:23
half we went from winning like under a
00:34:26
million dollar
00:34:28
to $300
00:34:30
million while I was under house arrest
00:34:33
uh I had the idea for my first business
00:34:36
my first invention it's called The Beat
00:34:37
buddy my company singular sound that
00:34:40
manufactures the beat buddy uh we came
00:34:42
out with eight other products and so all
00:34:45
music related I came up with another
00:34:47
idea for the mass Market with my brother
00:34:50
called instafloss which is a device that
00:34:52
flosses all your teeth for you and my
00:34:54
latest business is called War Dogs
00:34:57
Academy
00:34:58
where I teach people how to do
00:35:00
Government Contracting ever since the
00:35:02
movie came out I've had literally
00:35:04
hundreds if not thousands of people
00:35:06
contact me asking me to teach them how
00:35:07
to do Government
00:35:08
Contracting um and of course I had been
00:35:12
banned from doing Government Contracting
00:35:14
for about 15 years I recently got off
00:35:16
the band list we built an entire course
00:35:19
to teach people how to start a business
00:35:20
how to register it with the government
00:35:23
and how to win government contracts and
00:35:24
build a long-term legal government
00:35:27
contracting
00:35:51
business hi I'm a producer on how crime
00:35:53
works if you enjoyed this video then
00:35:55
please subscribe and comment below with
00:35:58
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00:35:59
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