'Mystery company' buys $800M worth of land near Travis AFB, raising concerns about national security
'Mystery company' buys $800M worth of land near Travis AFB, raising concerns about national security
"We're very, very concerned about this." A Solano County congressman is sounding the alarm about a mystery company that has bought $800 million of land near Travis AFB. After eight months of investigation, government officials have been unable to identify who's behind it and rule out any threat to n...
Foreign LLC continues to acquire land in California critical to energy and national defense.
FAIRFIELD, Calif. (KGO) -- The United States Air Force is investigating a company that's purchased $800 million of land near Travis Air Force Base, one of the most critical military bases in the U.S. 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.
Flannery LLC was founded 4 and 1/2 years ago and was registered to a Washington DC-based law firm.
There is no information about the actual ownership of this LLC. The previous Reddit thread from 4 years ago has some interesting tidbits of information that you may be interested in reading in addition to the new article.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Sacramento/comments/c96bkb/a_mysterious_corporation_has_quietly_bought/
What's additionally interesting is that the land that they acquired around Travis Air Force Base will be bayfront property with future sea level increases of between 3 to 5 ft. NOAA has predicted the sea level increase will blow by that with a 7.2 ft average global sea level rise by 2100.
So either we have a secretive Chinese back shell company acquiring critical infrastructure and land for spying on American military assets, or a very optimistic wealthy investor with way too much money and is getting creative in what kind of investment schemes they park their money in.
Oh, so NOW the feds have a problem with secret corporate ownership.
Maybe let's do something to limit the onshore tax havens in Delaware, Wyoming, Nevada....
When you own a piece of land, the feds own you, when you own all the land, you own the feds.
If Travis AFB is truly that concerned about it, why haven’t they simply bought the land instead? It’s the military; We all know they have literal billions of dollars to waste. Instead of complaining about some mystery investor purchasing the land, why not purchase it yourselves and incorporate it into the AFB?
The military isn't just allowed to buy up land willy nilly without oversight and direction from civilian officials. Do you remember when Clinton closed hundreds and thousands of military sites back in the '90s?
So they don't really get to decide on basic expansions solely within the military. And generally speaking, the military doesn't spend unnecessary money to expand military bases and provide a buffer zone around land that isn't used for bombing ranges and whatnot. Travis appears to be just a typical Air Force air base with a couple of runways.
However, these articles point toward other very shady acts going on including the proposed 400 ft tall observation Tower to oversee the airbase. Why would a farming operation or a land investor want an observation tower to overlook an Air Force Base?
Last year 300 acres of farmland were purchased near Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Garamendi called it a '"spy base."
"That base is where we launch our airplanes to figure out what's going on across the world," he said. "A company in China was acquiring land around that base and wanted to build a 400-foot silo that could look directly into the base... and we were like 'whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on there?'"
So this company is not just buying up land around one military base, they're doing it at several. As well as land along energy distribution corridors for the Pacific Northwest to California which is very strange. None of this land is very valuable, so why are they spending 10 times market value to acquire it?
The 400ft tall silo was near Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota and was known to be owned by a company from China
None of that has any tie to the company that bought land near Travis AFB
Land purchased by a Chinese company near one US AFB doesn't logically imply that any purchased land near a US AFB is a Chinese spy operation
I suppose the best option would be to decide to expand the fan, condemn the land, and take it over using eminent domain for assessed value on the tax records.
Quick somebody find a way to link this to China so we can get the GOP to start yelling about limiting foreign investment in US real estate. With a little luck we might can wrangle this into something that will lower the cost of housing.
Have we tried building more housing? I know radical idea.
Canada is struggling with this at the moment. It's a great idea on paper, but our development style is unsustainable and we simply can't keep up with demand. Not to mention that build costs are up 50% since 2020.
Affordable, efficient housing that is close to amenities is what is needed, but supplying that is quite unlikely given build costs and North America's infatuation with the suburb.
There's a good chance that China was a one harassing US Navy warships a few years ago.
Not definitive however.
Lowering retail investment will not lower the cost of housing - quite the opposite.
Others have pointed out that the purchased land is predicted to remain farmable when other regions in California become too dry to farm.
However, them suing landowners for not selling points to either extreme greed or a project that may necessitate having a contiguous portion of land.
Really? Most of this land looks like it is marginal land that is not very productive for anything. It's very low lying, around 0 to 1 ft above sea level and much of that area is actually tidal flats protected by dikes from the bay.
I've driven around the bay before, and there's a lot of shitty land around it that's basically not used for anything. I wouldn't even want to own a house along that area because it will be underwater within 20 or 30 years anyways.
This has been posted multiple times and it has been pointed out each time that the company isn’t really a mystery.
For example:
The company isn't a mystery, however the ownership, leadership, and investors of the company are unknown.
Only the lawyers are known so far.
OK, so if the company isn't a mystery, then who are their owners or directors? Where did they get $800 million?
Travis isn't even the best base in California to spy on. Beale AFB is just up the road and has more interesting shit.
I live up the road from Beale and there is always weird shit going on there.
What if it's a wealthy Native American just buying their land back? Probably not, but it would be peak irony
Even with 7.2 ft of sea level rise, is that really going to make something as far inland as Travis AFB beachfront property? I assume it’s elevation is greater than 8 ft.
It's not actually. It's practically at sea level right now, the whole area is protected by dikes. The whole Sacramento Delta is basically at sea level.
Oooh, time to bring up a weird CA history thing I know - Sacramento and most of central CA is in what's essentially a giant flood basin, and it's flooded before! In 1862, there was a massive deluge in the state that more or less turned the center of CA into another Great Lake of the US. It also happened even worse in 1605 apparently, so everyone's mostly wondering at what point will it happen again. Or maybe the sea will just swoop in and claim the great bowl of CA for itself.
So the only options are Bad China Bad! or somebody anticipating ocean front real estate in 80 years?
See false dichotomies for Your Fallacy.
Ah yes. The mystery company buying land right next to Air Force bases and key electrical infrastructure should definitely just be ignored.
Surely they could have no other motivation besides farming on their incredibly overpriced land that they purchased in extremely specific areas.
Lex Luthor make the purchase?
Otisburg? Otisburg!?
I think it's a very least, our government does need to do it's due diligence to protect American from foreign interests.
Years ago, the FBI used to investigate foreign actors acting against America's interests. Although I am no flag waving ultra-nationalist, I do believe that our government needs to protect Americans and our businesses, military and our institutions.
If they do not fulfill this basic need, then they are asleep at the wheel and like our failing cybersecurity, we are at a huge disadvantage against our enemies.
Also, don't forget that China was flying a surveillance balloon over the United States recently. And that was at least a second one that had flown previously over Hawaii several years ago. China is well known to operate a global surveillance program over many countries. This isn't paranoia, I mean we do it too with our signals intelligence.
