WHEELER DEALERS Being Produced By Will Smith & Brett Ratner
Paramount Pictures has purchased the rights to a film pitch called Wheeler Dealers that Will Smith and Brett Ratner are attached to produce.
The film will follow “a group of Miami twenty-somethings who landed a $300 million Pentagon contract to acquire massive stockpiles of old Chinese ammunition that wound up being sent to supply the Afghan army.”
I always enjoy films that are based on actual events. It is even cooler that the events are a little shady like this one. The real-life gunrunner’s name is Efaim Diveroli. Here is some background about him on Wikipedia:
Efraim Diveroli is an American arms dealer and president of AEY Inc. He gained notoriety after a New York Times expose accused him of delivering poor weapons and reported his young age, 22.
On March 27, 2008 the U.S. government suspended AEY Inc. for violating its contract. The company is accused of supplying ammunition, which was made in China from 1962 through 1974, to the Afghan National Army and police. United States Army-documents showed that since 2004 the company entered agreements with the U.S. government that totaled about $10 million. The papers also revealed the company struck it big in 2007 with contracts totaling more than $200 million to supply ammunition, assault rifles and other weapons. As a result of publicity surrounding the contract, the United States Army has begun a review of its contracting procedures.
A company Diveroli owns, Ammoworks, continued selling arms while he awaited trial. In late August 2009, he pled guilty on one count of conspiracy and he was sentenced to fours years in prison on January 4, 2011.
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