Efraim Diveroli (born December 20, 1985) is an American former

arms dealer The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and servi ...

and author. His company, AEY Inc., was a major weapons contractor for the U.S. Department of Defense. The U.S. government suspended AEY for violating its contract after AEY provided Chinese ammunition and attempted to hide the origins by repackaging it as being from Hungary, thus violating the American arms embargo against China. As a result of the publicity surrounding the contract and the age of the arms dealers – Diveroli was 21 and partner

David Packouz David Mordechai Packouz ( born February 16, 1982) is an American former arms dealer, musician and inventor. In 2005, Packouz joined Efraim Diveroli in Diveroli's arms company AEY Inc. By the end of 2006, the company had won 149 contracts worth a ...

was 25 when AEY landed the ammunition deal – the United States Army began a review of its contracting procedures. Diveroli was sentenced to four years in

federal prison A federal prison is operated under the jurisdiction of a federal government as opposed to a state or provincial body. Federal prisons are used for convicts who violated federal law (U.S., Mexico), inmates considered dangerous (Brazil), or those s ...

. He is a central subject of the Todd Phillips dramedy film ''

War Dogs Dogs in warfare have a very long history starting in ancient times. From being trained in combat, to their use as scouts, sentries, messengers, mercy dogs, and trackers, their uses have been varied and some continue to exist in modern military ...

'', released in 2016, as well as a memoir written in conjunction with convicted fraudster Matthew Cox and published in 2016.

Early life

Diveroli was born on December 20, 1985, in

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which sep ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, the son of Ateret and Michael Diveroli. The family was

Orthodox Jewish Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on M ...

, strictly observing all traditional Jewish laws. He studied at Hebrew Academy in Miami Beach, His grandfather, Yoav Botach, was one of the wealthiest property owners in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, and his uncle is celebrity

rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

Shmuley Boteach.

AEY Inc.

Formation of AEY

Diveroli returned home to

, in March 2001 at the age of fifteen. After an argument with his uncle, he told his father he wanted to open a business specializing in arms, ammunition trading, and defense contracts with the U.S. government. He convinced his father to sell him a

shell company A shell corporation is a company or corporation that exists only on paper and has no office and no employees, but may have a bank account or may hold passive investments or be the registered owner of assets, such as intellectual property, or s ...

, AEY, Inc., named after the first initials of him and his siblings, which his father had incorporated as a small printing business, but had not done anything with for years. Diveroli showed a penchant for arms dealing and quickly made a name for himself within the industry. His young age and apparent talent led local media outlets to label him as an "arms wunderkind." Diveroli struggled with drug addiction and was also labeled as a "stoner arms dealer" by the media. During the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

, the world engaged in an protracted and massive arms race. Millions of weapons were stockpiled throughout Eastern Europe, ready for a war with the West. When the Cold War ended, and the immediate threat of violence subsided, arms dealers started moving these vast amounts of weapons. The sales that followed formed the "gray market" where non-state actors (such as militia or terrorist groups) and legitimate government-sanctioned buyers could procure arms through illegal foreign government sales. "The Pentagon needed access to this new aftermarket to arm the militias it was creating in Iraq and Afghanistan. The trouble was, it couldn't go into such a murky underworld on its own. It needed proxies to do its dirty work — companies like AEY."

Contracts

Diveroli started working during this period of heavy arms trading as a teenager in a one-room apartment in Miami. Equipped with nothing more than a laptop, he sought to enter the industry from the seat of his couch. He began surfing solicitations on fbo.gov, or FedBizOpps, which is a government website where contracts are posted. He began by bidding on small contracts with the financial help of Ralph Merrill, with whom he did business during his time working for his uncle. By the age of eighteen, Diveroli had become a millionaire by continuing to beat out big corporations like

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military techn ...

, Lockheed and

BAE Systems BAE Systems plc (BAE) is a British multinational arms, security, and aerospace company based in London, England. It is the largest defence contractor in Europe, and ranked the seventh-largest in the world based on applicable 2021 revenues. ...

. In the words of ''Rolling Stone'', Diveroli had "an appetite for risk and all-devouring ambition." After steadily increasing the size of his contracts and developing a track record of success, Diveroli's company AEY, Inc. was awarded a $298 million contract by the Pentagon to provide arms and munitions to the allied forces in Afghanistan. To fulfill the US government contracts, Diveroli soon found himself dealing with dubious weapons traders, crooked diplomats, and soldiers of fortune; negotiating deals with foreign defense ministers, holding meetings at embassies, and taking calls from high-ranking Army officials. On March 27, 2008, the U.S. government suspended AEY Inc. for infringing upon the terms of its contract; in violation of a pre-existing arms embargo, the company was accused of supplying

ammunition Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weap ...

manufactured in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

to the

Afghan National Army Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia * Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity **Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...

and

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

documents showed that the company totaled more than $200 million in contracts to supply ammunition, rifles, and other weapons in 2007. As a result of publicity surrounding the contract, the United States Army began a review of its contracting procedures. The

United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform The Committee on Oversight and Reform is the main investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. The committee's broad jurisdiction and legislative authority make it one of the most influential and powerful panels in the ...

ruled the ammunition "unserviceable". AEY had also failed to perform on numerous previous contracts, including sending potentially unsafe helmets and failure to deliver 10,000 Beretta pistols to Iraq. Diveroli's former partner,

, and Ralph Merrill, the group's former chief financier, later filed separate lawsuits against Diveroli seeking payment of millions of dollars they say they were owed in connection to the weapons contract with the U.S. government.

Trial and conviction

A company Diveroli owns, Ammoworks, continued selling arms while he awaited trial for conspiracy. In late August 2008, he pleaded guilty on one count of

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...

, and was sentenced to four years in prison on January 4, 2011. He was further sentenced for possessing a weapon while out on bond and had his overall sentence reduced for assisting in the investigation of the prosecution. Diveroli's former partner

was sentenced to seven months' house arrest.

''War Dogs''

The story of Diveroli's arms deals is the subject of the Todd Phillips comedy/drama film ''War Dogs'', starring

Jonah Hill Jonah Hill Feldstein (born December 20, 1983) is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is known for his comedic roles in films including ''Superbad (film), Superbad'' (2007), ''Knocked Up'' (2007), ''21 Jump Street (film), 21 Jump Stre ...

as Diveroli and

Miles Teller Miles Teller (born February 20, 1987) is an American actor. He played a jazz drummer in ''Whiplash'' and a supporting pilot in '' Top Gun: Maverick''. Teller made his feature film debut in 2010 and gained recognition for his starring role in t ...

as his partner, David Packouz, which was based on the reporting done by Canadian journalist

Guy Lawson Guy Lawson (born 26 January 1963) is a Canadian American journalist and true crime writer who has been published in Harper's, '' GQ'', the ''New York Times'', and ''Rolling Stone''. Early life and career Lawson was born in Toronto, Canada to ...

for ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

''. In 2016, Diveroli filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., director Todd Phillips, producer Bradley Cooper, and others, seeking to block release of the film. Diveroli's suit against Warner Bros. claimed that the basis for the film was taken from his self-published memoir ''Once A Gun Runner'', which convicted real estate fraudster Matthew Cox claims to have written while in prison with Diveroli.