In this special bonus episode from The Financial Times, "The Broker" tells the story of how a failed baseball hopeful and disgraced stockbroker reinvented himself as one of America’s most consequential modern arms dealers.

From a family-run warehouse in Virginia Beach, Will Somerindyke built his company into a crucial conduit in the Pentagon’s covert supply chains — sourcing Soviet-era weapons for wars in Syria and Yemen before emerging as a central player in Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

As artillery shells became the most sought-after commodity of the war, he placed a multimillion-dollar bet on reviving crumbling Cold War factories in the Balkans, transforming himself from middleman to manufacturer.

Based on months of reporting, The Broker traces Somerindyke’s rise through the shadow world of privatised warfare — where geopolitics, profit and personal ambition collide — and reveals how modern conflicts are sustained not only by soldiers on the front lines, but by entrepreneurs who move the weapons behind the scenes.

This piece, written by the FT’s Miles Johnson, host of Hot Money Season 2: The New Narcos, was originally printed in FT Weekend.

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