Though Merrill tells The Post that they got the contract by “coming in at around $50 million below the nearest bidder,” it still promised to make everyone rich.īut complications arose. Their order included mortar shells, rocket grenades and 93 million rounds of AK-47 ammo. In January 2007, Diveroli landed his career-making deal to supply the Afghan army with $298 million worth of gear. The movie didn’t touch on that, but everything else about Merrill is pretty much wrong: “ Jewish, lives in Miami and a dry cleaner.” “I ordered stuff from and Efraim became my rep,” says Merrill. The real-life Efraim Diveroli (right) and David Packouz. Back then, Merrill, a Mormon based in Utah, made his living by producing and selling automatic weapons for hobbyists. Merrill and Diveroli met through business in 2003. I didn’t know if it was psychosis or acting, but he absolutely believed what he was saying.”īacking AEY was Ralph Merrill, now 73, who invested his life savings with the gun-running stoners. But if he was about to lose a deal, his voice would start shaking. “He would be toasted, but you would never know it,” Packouz told Rolling Stone. The real Packouz has explained that Diveroli’s talent as an expert liar made him a natural for arms dealing. Business boomed as the American government contracted them to send Russian-designed machine guns and grenades to allies in the world’s most volatile hot zones. I didn’t know anything about the situation in that part of the world.” - David Packouzĭiveroli recruited Hebrew-school chum David Packouz (played by Miles Teller) to handle the logistics of shipping weapons from the Eastern Bloc to the Middle East. “Here I was, dealing with matters of international security, and I was half-baked. After a spat over money, he returned home to Florida and launched a company called AEY. It’s a wild ride of drugs, guns and stacks of Benjamins.īut the real tale looked a little different.Īt the center of it all is Efraim Diveroli (played by Jonah Hill), just 18 when the gambit kicked into gear, who learned the weapons business while working with his gun-selling uncle in Los Angeles at age 14. That’s the way it plays in “War Dogs,” the Hollywood version of a true story involving Miami potheads who earn millions of dollars selling weapons to friendly armies in the Middle East on behalf of the US government. Later, with pistols delivered and cash in hand, they return to the States for bong rips, lines of cocaine and hotel hookers. Crates of Berettas rattle around in the back of their truck they elude gunfire in Fallujah. It looks like the adventure of a lifetime: Two gun-dealing stoners bump and grind through Iraq’s so-called Triangle of Death.
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