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ARMS AND THE DUDES By: Guy Lawson
Simon & Schuster
April 2015
On Sale: April 14, 2015
288 pages ISBN: 1451667590 EAN: 9781451667592 Kindle: B00LD1S3HW Hardcover / e-Book
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Other Editions Paperback (reprint - August 2016)
Non-Fiction | Non-Fiction Political
The page-turning, inside account of how two kids from Florida became big-time weapons tradersβand how the US government turned on them. In January of 2007, two young stoners from Miami Beachβone a ninth grade dropout, the other a licensed masseurβwon a $300 million Department of Defense contract to supply ammunition to the Afghanistan military. Incredibly, instead of fulfilling the order with high-quality arms, Efraim Diveroli and David Packouzβthe dudesβbought cheap Communist-style surplus ammunition from Balkan gunrunners. The pair then secretly repackaged millions of rounds of shoddy Chinese ammunition and shipped it to Kabulβuntil they were caught by Pentagon investigators and the scandal turned up on the front page of The New York Times. Thatβs the βofficialβ story. The truth is far more explosive. For the first time, journalist Guy Lawson tells the thrilling true tale. Itβs a trip that goes from a dive apartment in Miami Beach to mountain caves in Albania, the corridors of power in Washington, and the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. Lawsonβs account includes a shady Swiss gunrunner, Russian arms dealers, corrupt Albanian gangsters, and a Pentagon investigation that impeded Americaβs war efforts in Afghanistan. Lawson exposes the mysterious and murky world of global arms dealing, showing how the American military came to use private contractors like Diveroli and Packouz as middlemen to secure weapons from illegal arms dealersβthe same men who sell guns to dictators, warlords, and drug traffickers. This is a story you were never meant to read.
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