In a tale as improbable as it is audacious, Douglas Edelman, a California-born entrepreneur who once owned a bar in Kyrgyzstan, rose to become a central figure in one of the largest tax evasion cases in US history. His trajectory – from pouring German beer and serving caviar burgers in Bishkek to raking in over $7 billion in Pentagon fuel contracts – offers a searing indictment of the opaque systems that enabled one man to build a global empire behind a wall of shell companies, secrecy, and lies.

On May 21, in a Washington courtroom, Edelman pleaded guilty to 10 counts from a 30-count indictment, including conspiracy and making false statements to US authorities. His plea marks the dramatic culmination of a seven-year international investigation dubbed “Operation Jetsetter,” a joint effort by the US and other nations’ tax enforcement bodies that scoured millions of documents to piece together the sprawling financial network Edelman had designed to hide his fortune.

Edelman’s ascent began in the mid-1990s in the unlikeliest of places – Kyrgyzstan, a remote Central Asian republic still reeling from the collapse of the Soviet Union. With just two years of college education and no formal business training, Edelman set up shop as a middleman in the region’s chaotic fuel trade. His real break came in 2001, following the US invasion of Afghanistan. The US military transformed Bishkek’s international airport into a key logistical hub. Edelman, through his firms Mina Corp. and Red Star Enterprises, became one of the Pentagon’s primary fuel suppliers.

At the peak of operations, Mina and Red Star were delivering 500,000 gallons of jet fuel per day to US forces, all while employing over 1,200 staff. Edelman reportedly developed a sophisticated logistics system capable of tracking every railway car of fuel across........

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