Setting aside the national security question, more broadly it's pretty insane that the USA lets companies hide who owns/controls them. When you decide to hang out your shingle and profit at the expense of the general public, I would say the general public has a genuine right to know who you are.<p>Reminds me of how Disney used aliases and codenames and shell companies and secretive ownership structures to buy up all the land for Disney World in Florida[1], so that sellers didn't know who was behind it. This should be illegal.<p>1: <a href="https://www.wesh.com/article/disney-world-beginnings/37807860" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.wesh.com/article/disney-world-beginnings/3780786...</a>
<a href="https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_ca/201905210181" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_ca/201905210181</a> says a guy named Thomas Mather was a director. <a href="https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralvalley/board_decisions/adopted_orders/general_orders/2004-0012-dwq_noas/2004-0012-dwq-0004_rev5.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralvalley/board_decisions...</a> is some government application by Flannery that also has his name on it. Looks like this was covered in 2019: <a href="https://www.thereporter.com/2019/07/05/large-rural-land-purchase-near-suisun-city-draws-questions/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.thereporter.com/2019/07/05/large-rural-land-purc...</a><p>If Mather is not the true owner, it would take the government five seconds to figure out who actually owned it by just finding out who's paying their lawyers (Skadden!) in the current litigation they are involved in.
This is an incredibly silly story. Everything about this ownership is in public records. Flannery Assoc. has been openly buying land in this are for over 5 years and have spent over a billion dollars and sued dozens of parties. Everyone knows what they are doing. They want to lease the land for energy infrastructure.
If this land is so precious to our national defense, why wasn't the land already owned by the federal government? Eminent domain is the uno reverse card here.
Maybe a bit off topic, but my first thought was wondering whether the OSINT community would get any further with figuring out who it was, but I then realised, the OSINT community often look successful because they publish, but we don't know if "closed source" intelligence knows the same things or is even more successful, but just doesn't publish.<p>Does anyone have any evidence one way or another? Are OSINT thinking outside the box and doing something materially different, or are they just visible? Are traditional intelligence communities still doing this but just being understandable secretive about methods?<p>This is not to down play the importance of the OSINT community in any way, I believe publishing does materially change things by increasing accountability to the public.
It kind of amazes me that our government can’t figure out who is behind this. Because it’s extremely hard to hide these kinds of things. When I last moved, there were a few toxic people in my life at the time and I didn’t want them to be able to find my new home. What I found is that it’s exceptionally difficult and expensive to keep this private. I looked at forming an LLC etc… The problem is that it eventually leaks out somehow.<p>I have a lawyer friend who confirmed this from their own experience. They told us about a sibling who is a high profile senior exec at well known public company. This person tried to hide their home purchase for privacy and safety reasons. They had the resources to do this, spent a ton of money, and ultimately failed. You can easily Google their address.
Towards the end of the article is this depressing nugget:<p>" Nearly one in five homes were purchased by investors in early 2023, including LLCs and other corporate entities, according to data compiled by real-estate firm Redfin of more than 40 of the largest U.S. metro areas. "
Could this be a stealth real estate investment? It seems to be one of the regions of farmland closest-ish to the urban Bay Area. That would parsimoniously explain why the LLC is paying multiples over market value, on what's currently zoned as mere agricultural land.<p>Three things the Bay Area has in plenty right right now: (0) people with too much money; (1) people looking to escape the Bay Area; (2) people spooked about macroeconomic conditions. The mystery LLC claims to be a "group of families... looking to diversify their portfolio from equities to real assets". Maybe that's simply what it is: a conspiracy of techies stashing their loot in real estate, with a very long-term horizon, betting on a Detroit-ization of the SFC area and a consequent real estate boom in the greater exurbs.<p>Why stealthy? To buy the land as cheap as possible. Maybe that's what those legal disputes are about: some landowners sussed out that the new buyers have a very high willingness-to-pay, and are trying aggressively to maximize their selling price.
It's taken 5 years after numerous land purchases and a giant $500m lawsuit against landowners for people to get suspicious? Doesn't that seem entirely backwards, that a "mysterious company" can own so much in such short time and that's perfectly legal no red flags? It's only a problem now because it's near a base which is pure absurdity, they would likely also buy the land the base is on and demolish it for their given reason "interstate commerce".
WSJ has a map (and more details)<p><a href="https://archive.is/PcfBc" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://archive.is/PcfBc</a><p>- <i>"“Nobody can figure out who they are,” said Ronald Kott, mayor of Rio Vista, Calif., which is now largely surrounded by Flannery-owned land."</i>
I find it hard to believe if the Military was actually worried about this they would be going about it by having a House rep blast his mouth about it on local news.
I'm unconcerned with the conspiracy theories. I'm concerned that it's a literal land grab by corporate profiteers to sink their ill-gotten gains into tangible assets including huge tracts of land blocking new developments. Cities, counties, and states must block these sort of extreme deals because they prevent expansion of direly needed housing and affordable housing.
> But after eight months of investigation, government officials have been unable to identify who's behind it nor rule out any threat to national security.<p>If nothing else this should be an indicator of how broken the land & real estate purchase system is in the US. We are literally the only country in the world that has no controls and <i>no visibility</i> over having large chunks of our territory bought out by a foreign resident, foreign business or even a foreign government.
The company is suing people for talking to each other about the company and demanding more money for their farms that the company is/was trying to buy. There is no legal justification for this lawsuit; it's a legal shakedown to try and drain their targets' resources so that they're compelled to sell below-market to avoid bankruptcy.<p>Also known as the modus operandi for Skadden Arps, the most morally bankrupt firm in the country. Skadden's "illustrious" client list includes Elmo (they advised him on the strategy of forcing terminated employees into arbitration and then refusing to pay arbitration fees), organized crime, and multiple individuals and entities known to be KGB affiliates and Putin allies (Skadden has paid hefty fines for illegal lobbying on behalf of the Putin regime...multiple times.)
> The attorney representing Flannery Associates sent a letter to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, one of several agencies investigating the matter, issuing a formal response.<p>> "No foreign person or group holds any significant interest or substantial control over Flannery, either now or at the time of any land purchase made by Flannery," the letter said.<p>"Person or group" doesn't include "government". This also doesn't mean the (supposedly domestic) owners won't lease the land to a foreign entity. Also, note the word "significant." And, "foreign" compared to what? If the owners are, say, Chinese, "no foreign" means no NON-Chinese.<p>Not trying to stoke paranoia, but just showing how statements like this are open to interpretation and should be taken with a grain of salt.
If you were spying, surely you wouldn't need that much area?
And if you were doing something nefarious, wouldn't you use more than one company to make the purchases?
> Even after eight months of investigation, Garamendi says federal authorities are still struggling to get those answers.<p>What if somebody moves a few bulldozers to that land and start raising an obstacle which would be convenient to protect AFB from spying? I highly suspect somebody will show up and demand this to stop. That guy should be questioned - who he is and on what grounds he's managing the property. This will likely lead towards the owners.<p>Can the beneficiaries be contacted this way, if other ways fail for months?