USAF investigates mystery company that's bought 55,000 acres around major California air force base

[Timber Rattler]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12277263/USAF-investigates-mystery-company-thats-bought-55-000-acres-major-California-Air-Force-base.html

Government officials are investigating a mysterious company that has bought around 55,000 acres of dry farmland around a USAF base in California.

Travis Air Force base, northeast of San Francisco, houses large transport aircraft used for refueling smaller planes and sending aid and munitions around the world.

Starting in 2018, a company called Flannery Associates LLC has spent around $800million buying swathes of land around the base, leaving local, state and federal officials flummoxed as to who they are and what they want with it.

An attorney representing Flannery told The Wall Street Journal the company is controlled by US citizens and that 97 percent of its capital comes from American investors - with the remaining investments coming from British and Irish citizens.

In a letter to Solano County, the majority of which is owned by Flannery, the company is described itself as being 'owned by a group of families looking to diversify their portfolio from equities into real assets, including agricultural land in the western United States,' according to county newspaper the Daily Republic.

But after eight months of investigation, the Air Force's 'Foreign Investment Risk Review Office' has failed to identify any one individual behind the Flannery, according to the Journal.

Meanwhile, the US Agriculture Department has made its own inquiries, also to no avail.

'Nobody can figure out who they are,' Ronald Kott, mayor of nearby Rio Vista, which is now largely surrounded by Flannery land, told The Journal. 'Whatever they're doing - this looks like a very long-term play.'

Over the years that Flannery, registered in Delaware, has been buying up land, it has given a variety of accounts and indications as to what it wants to do with it.

An attorney for Flannery, Richard Melnyk, said in an email to the county in 2019...

EXCERPT

[Kamaji]

No doubt the Chinese are ultimately behind it.

[Timber Rattler]

No doubt the Chinese are ultimately behind it.

Yeah, using a bunch of shell companies and front men to try and conceal their ownership.

[mountaineer]

An attorney representing Flannery told The Wall Street Journal the company is controlled by US citizens and that 97 percent of its capital comes from American investors - with the remaining investments coming from British and Irish citizens.

Ha ha, good one.

[mystery-ak]

Mysterious Investors Behind $1 Billion
Land Purchase Near Key Air Force Base


Micaela Burrow
Investigative Reporter, Defense
July 07, 2023 2:47 PM ET


The Air Force is investigating nearly $1 billion in mysterious land purchases near a key Air Force base in California, but after eight months of digging has been unable to uncover the investors behind the deal, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

A mysterious group known as Flannery Associates has gobbled up nearly 52,000 acres of agricultural land in California, including areas near Travis Air Force Base, sparking concerns of foreign influence that lead to the Air Force’s Foreign Investment Risk Review Office’s probe, according to the WSJ. Flannery maintains it is majority American-owned, with the remaining 3% of invested capital originating from Ireland and Britain, but local authorities, lawmakers and federal agencies continue to probe the opaque company.

“Any speculation that Flannery’s purchases are motivated by the proximity to Travis Air Force Base” is unfounded, an attorney for the firm told the WSJ.

In the last five years, Flannery has become the largest landowner in Solano County, the outlet reported, citing county officials and public records.

more
https://dailycaller.com/2023/07/07/investors-air-force-base-land/