Vroege RecensentenGuy Lawson

In January of 2007, three young stoners from Miami Beach were put in charge of a $300 million Department of Defense contract to supply ammunition to the Afghanistan military. Instead of fulfilling the order with high-quality arms, Efraim Diveroli, David Packouz, and Alex Podrizki (the dudes) bought cheap Communist-style surplus ammunition from Balkan gunrunners. The trio then secretly repackaged millions of rounds of shoddy Chinese ammunition and shipped it to Kabul—until they were caught by Pentagon investigators and the scandal turned up on the front page of The New York Times. That’s the “official” story. The truth is far more explosive. For the first time, journalist Guy Lawson tells the thrilling true tale. It’s 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. Lawson’s account includes a shady Swiss gunrunner, Russian arms dealers, Albanian thugs, and a Pentagon investigation that caused ammunition shortages for the Afghanistan military. Lawson exposes the mysterious and murky world of global arms dealing, showing how the American military came to use private contractors like Diveroli, Packouz, and Podrizki as middlemen to secure weapons from illegal arms dealers—the same men who sell guns to dictators, warlords, and drug traffickers. This is a story you were never meant to read.

Guy Lawson's Acclaimed New York Times Bestseller OCTOPUS is now Available in Paperback! OCTOPUS is a real-life thriller that tells the inside story of an audacious hedge fund fraud and the wild search, by a colorful cast of rogues and schemers, for a “secret market” beneath the financial market we all know. "A fantastic story, in both senses of the word, with a freshness that recalls Liar's Poker." --Bryan Burrough, New York Times "Brings to life one of the most colorful, and often engaging, con men of this or any other century . . . an entertaining, well-told tale." --Washington Times "If you dig movies about cons . . . you will blow through Octopus." --The Daily Beast "An absorbing, splendidly detailed, and darkly illuminating tale of our times." -- Fortune "An incredible dark comedy with one of the craziest true-life ironic twists you can possibly imagine." --Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone