* By Roger Bull, Steve Patterson, Paul Pinkham
* Story updated at 9:46 AM on Monday, Mar. 8, 2010
In less than 15 years, Armor Holdings grew from a small company making bulletproof vests in Yulee to a multinational company selling military and law enforcement equipment all over the globe.
Annual sales rose from $12 million to $2.4 billion. Forbes twice named it one of America's fastest-growing companies.
And it went from bankruptcy in 1993 to being sold for $4.5 billion in 2007.
The sale was to BAE Systems, paid for with some of the profits it didn't reinvest in New Hampshire.
BAE Systems announced it generated an economic impact of more than $638 million in New Hampshire during 2009.
The company said the financial impact reflects $514 million disbursed in payroll to 4,700 employees and nearly $124 million awarded for subcontracts and purchase orders to more than 350 businesses in the state.
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The company and its employees also contributed $2.9 million in cash and in-kind services to area civic, charitable, and educational institutions during 2009. Employee contributions to New Hampshire charities included more than $1.8 million to support local United Way campaigns and other employee-specified charities.
I only mention that because there's no reference to the amount of taxes paid by BAE Systems in N.H. and taking credit for its employees' charitable contributions strikes me as just a bit shoddy. And the stuff produced by the outfit BAE bought was shoddy, too.
Federal indictments and documents also report:
** Bistrong and senior employees at Armor hid about $4.4 million in bribes from 2001 to 2006.
** In 2004, after Armor's British subsidiary was denied a license to export vests and helmets to the Kurdistan regional government in Iraq, Bistrong had the equipment shipped to the United States. He is charged with then shipping it to Kurdish representatives in the United Arab Emirates for delivery to Iraq without obtaining a license from the Commerce Department.
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** In 2004, the U.S. Army gave Armor subsidiary Simula Inc. $266 million in sole-source contracts to build 5,900 sets of armor for trucks and heavy equipment needed in combat zones. But much of the equipment had missing or unusable pieces, like truck kits with two left doors or no nuts and bolts, according to a Defense Department inspector general report.
** BAE also paid $30 million to settle Justice Department claims that Armor knowingly sold defective Zylon bulletproof vests to federal agencies and police forces before it stopped making the vests in 2005.
Meanwhile, BAE has its own history with federal authorities and last month agreed to pay $400 million to resolve decade-old allegations that it misled the Defense and State departments about its efforts to comply with laws against bribing foreign officials....
The people arrested are a colorful crowd with an astonishing shopping list:
Rifle-mounted cameras and tactical vehicles known as The Rook.
Uniforms.
Twenty-five grenade launchers and 70,000 grenades. (by some guys in Arkansas)
Three million rounds of ammunition.
Laser sights for handguns.
M4 rifles.
Body armor plates. (Sought by R. Patrick Caldwell, a former deputy assistant director of the U.S. Secret Service)
Two Corner Shot units, a weapon designed to shoot around corners.
Twenty-five riot control suits and 92,160 MREs.
Night-vision goggles and armored vehicles.
Body armor. (By a guy in Kentucky)
Explosive detection kits.
Pistols. (By a VP at Smith and Wesson!)
Ballistic plates.
If they were all connected, you'd think they were outfitting a small army. But, they were literally all over the map, from Upper Darby in PA to Stearns, KY and Bull Shoals, Arkansas. Of course, none of these people should be considered domestic terrorists.
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