The Stolen Military Vehicles Story

1996

This is a True Story

Written 3/2011* 1500 Words*

#162 By Howard Yasgar

This story is about how I had almost gotten my company involved in one of the biggest military vehicle theft cases of 1996.

In 1996 my company was in the military vehicle parts business.

I had absolutely no idea as to how involved I was in what had happened.

It wasn’t until all the defendants were on trial, and the evidence against them was available to one of the defendant’s attorneys that I found out how involved we were.

At the time, the theft case appeared in all the newspapers, and it was all over the internet, and it probably still is on the internet.

It all started one day when I was reading a military vehicle collector’s magazine and I saw the name “Tony’s Surplus”, it was a company located in St Paul Minnesota.

I was curious as to what Tony’s Surplus did, so I called him up.

The fellow that answered the phone said his name was Tony Piatz, and he said everyone just called him “Tanker Tony” because he collected and rebuilt old Army tanks.

It all sounded so fascinating, and I wanted to hear more about what he did.

Tony told me that his regular business was moving house trailers, but he also did several other things. He said he especially liked to restore old military tanks and trucks.

I wondered where Tony got the old military tanks and trucks to fix up, so I asked him.

Tony said he bid on cleaning up firing ranges on the Fort McCoy military base in Wisconsin.

According to “Tanker Tony”, the government has firing ranges where military helicopters practice shooting at army vehicles.

Tony said the government puts old tanks and trucks on the firing ranges and the helicopters fire rockets into them, eventually pounding the vehicles into the ground.

Tony said when he then gets contracts to clean up the firing ranges, and keep all the leftover remains.

He told me that sometimes he digs up 3 or 4 old tanks, and he can make one good tank out of all the junk parts.

Tony said he owned an underground former Nike missile site, and he intended to make a military vehicle museum out of it and charge admission.

The more I talked to Tanker Tony, the friendlier we got.

One day Tanker Tony called me up and said he was getting a whole bunch of military vehicles that he wanted to sell.

I asked Tony what he had available, and he told me that he was buying a variety of vehicles from the Fort McCoy army base.

He said that all the vehicles were destined to be put on the firing ranges and were to be shot at as targets. But for some reason the ranges had suddenly closed and Tony was now allowed to purchase the vehicles rather than have the government send them to the scrap yard, so he said he was just now hauling off all the vehicles as we spoke.

Tony then said he had a legal bill of sale from the government for all the vehicles.

I asked Tony if he had a list made of what vehicles he had available and he said he did, and he would fax it to me.

When I looked the list over, I was surprised at the variety of vehicles which included Jeeps, shop vans, and three M113A2 personnel carriers.

When I saw the M113A2 personnel carriers, I immediately brought it to the attention of a vehicle specialist, Henry Moed who worked with us.

He thought we could sell the M113A2 personnel carriers to either Pakistan or to the country of Chile.

I quickly called Tony back and asked him for the price of the three M113A2 personnel carriers.

Tony said he wanted $33,000.00 each for them. He said they were just like new, and they even had Tow missile launchers attached to them,”

Tony also said, “He had also bought 28 M151 Jeeps that were all just like new, and all of them had low mileage, and if we wanted them, they were $1,500.00 each.”

I told Tony that we were pretty sure we wanted the three personnel Carriers, and I would like to buy all the M151 Jeeps.

I told Tony that we needed to find an economical way of shipping everything to Miami Florida.

I told Tony to give us a day or so to try and make shipping arrangements.

I then spoke with my wife Katherine, and I asked her to try finding a way to ship the 28 jeeps to Miami.

I called Tanker Tony back and told him that we wanted the personnel carriers at $33,000.00 ea.

Tony asked, “What are you going to do with them?”

I said that we were going to export them to Chile.

Tony then asked, “If you sell them to Chile, would you need to record the serial numbers”?

Yes, I told him, we would have to apply for an export license, and we would need the serial numbers.

Tony then became hesitant, and I smelled a rat, Tony was obviously lying about how he had gotten the vehicles.

Then Tony said he had a customer from a museum, and he was selling him one of the M-113

personnel carriers.

We were disappointed, but at this point, we suspected that something was very wrong with Tony and his story about the vehicles.

So, I was happy to hang up from the phone call with Tony, and as it turned out, it was very lucky that I did.

The next day, I received a call from my friend George Pretty who owned a military parts company in Sturgis Michigan, he said he was buying a couple of Jeeps from Tony, so I told him of our suspicions.

After about a month, my friend George Pretty in Sturgis,called me, he was extremely disturbed.

He said that the FBI and the U. S. Governments Criminal Investigative Division, had swooped down on his business and confiscated all the jeeps he had bought from Tony.

George said the Government agents told him that they intended to prosecute him for buying and possessing stolen military vehicles.

I called Tony up, and he answered the phone.

I asked him what he was doing, I acted like I didn’t know about all the trouble he was in.

Tony said, “I’m sitting in the middle of my shop, with my head in my hands, waiting for the FBI to come get me.”

I didn’t ask him why, because I already knew what was going on.

The next week, it became big news worldwide, and it was in all the newspapers, as well as on television, and the internet.

The news reporters all referred to my buddy Tony as “Tanker Tony”, and they said he stole over thirteen million dollars in vehicles from the government.

Tony was arrested along with five other military and civilian employees at Fort McCoy.

They also arrested the military museum owner who bought the M-113 personnel carrier instead of us.

The news said that Tony was the ringleader, and he had bribed the Fort McCoy employees.

They said that there were two military guys and three civilian government employees that Tony had paid off.

The news also reported that Tony had 11 charges leveled against him and he could get up to 125 years in jail, as well as 2.75 million dollars in fines.

We heard that all the vehicles were eventually confiscated and anyone who bought any of them lost all their money.

Eventually Tony and the other six people were convicted, and I heard Tony got five years in prison.

But the most interesting part of it all was my later conversation with my good friend George Pretty in Sturgis Michigan, he had hired an attorney, and the attorney had received a copy of all the government’s evidence.

The evidence included transcripts of their tapping of Tanker Tony’s telephone.

Every single conversation that I ever had with Tony had been recorded and printed out in the evidence package.

Our good friend George in Sturgis Michigan was eventually acquitted, but he never got his vehicles or his money back.

I thought it was strange that the government never contacted us, nor was my name ever

mentioned at the trial.

I think that was a close call.