Arms Supplier Faces Conspiracy Charges A Miami arms dealer has been indicted for allegedly providing old Chinese ammunition to the Afghan army. Efraim Diveroli, the 22-year-old owner of AEY Inc., is charged with conspiracy and 70 counts of making false statements to the U.S. Army. Three associates were also indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami June 20. The New York Times reported this spring that AEY shipped millions of Chinese-made cartridges, some of them 40 years old, from a middleman in Albania to Afghanistan. Federal law prohibits trading in Chinese munitions. AEY was listed as a small disadvantaged business in the Federal Procurement Data System, although it was never certified by SBA. The company received nearly $300 million in contracts. The indictment alleges that Diveroli and his associates exchanged emails about how to disguise the origin of the ammunition. Diveroli’s attorney told Government Executive magazine that he committed no crime because the ammunition was sold to an Albanian company before the Chinese munitions embargo took effect in 1989. AEY has been suspended from federal contracting. Separately, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee charged that the U.S. ambassador to Albania was aware of the effort to cover up the shipments of Chinese arms. A former embassy official told committee investigators that Ambassador John Withers II approved the Albanian defense minister’s plan to remove evidence of Chinese packaging from the ammunition, according to committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-CA. The State Department said it was not aware of any wrongdoing. Senate Small Business Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-MA, has asked the state and defense departments to explain how AEY was listed as a small disadvantaged business.