Report: Israeli got $69m from New York state for ventilators, failed to deliver

An Israeli entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley has reportedly failed to supply ventilators for which he was paid $69.1 million by New York State.

According to an investigative report in BuzzFeed News, Yaron Oren-Pines, a wireless communications engineer, promised 1,450 ventilators to New York State for $47,656 apiece, which according to the report is three times the standard price for a high-end model in the United States.

The transaction went ahead after Oren-Pines pitched his services on Twitter in response to a March 27 tweet by President Donald Trump in which the US leader implored General Motors and Ford to “START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!!”

Yaron Oren-Pines, who has just 75 Twitter followers and has since blocked his account to public view, tweeted in return, “We can supply ICU Ventilators, invasive and noninvasive. Have someone call me URGENT.”

Even though Oren-Pines apparently has no experience in government contracting or medical devices, the state paid him the money within just three days.

A state official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Buzzfeed that New York had entered into the contract with Oren-Pines at the direct recommendation of the White House coronavirus task force.

Three days after Yaron Oren-Pines sent this reply, New York paid him $69.1 million for 1,450 ventilators — an astonishing $47,656 per ventilator. Not a single ventilator ever arrived, the state since terminated the contract, and is now trying to recover its money pic.twitter.com/NscQxXZcoC

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) April 29, 2020

“The guy was recommended to us by the White House coronavirus task force because they were doing business with him as well,” the official said. “I think everyone was genuinely trying to help each other out and get supplies.”

Following publication of the article, a spokesperson for Vice President Mike Pence, Katie Miller, said: “The White House Coronavirus Task Force was never informed of this contract and was not involved in it at all.”

Buzzfeed said that the state had now terminated the contract and that it had been told by the New York Office of General Services that “a bulk of the money was returned to the state.”

Reached by telephone by BuzzFeed, Oren-Pines said “neither me nor my company is providing any comment on this,” and then hung up. He did not respond to subsequent text messages.

According to BuzzFeeed, Oren-Pines immigrated to the United States from Israel in the mid-1990s. His LinkedIn profile says he graduated from the University of Maryland and the Illinois Institute of Technology and lists him as the founder and owner of a company called InCommon, which provides consultancy services for mobile developers and cellular operators. However, according to BuzzFeed, no listing for InCommon could be found in state registries.

Oren-Pines also worked as a consultant at Google for two years from August, 2016, where his supervisor Mike Ritter described him as a “dedicated, hard working engineer who will do whatever it takes to get the project across the finish line.”

Ritter told BuzzFeed that Oren-Pines is a “go-getter. Anytime there’s opportunity, he’s always been out there trying to help and make a buck.”

In an additional Israeli angle to the story, BuzzFeed noted that less than an hour after Oren-Pines tweeted back at Trump over the ventilators, an Israeli entrepreneur by the name of Segev Binyamin with just three Twitter followers, one of whom is Oren-Pines, tweeted at Defense Minister Naftali Bennett that he could supply ventilators to Israel.

“I own a Chinese company and have the ability to ship 1,400 machines,” Binyamin tweeted. BuzzFeed noted that the number was almost identical to the number of ventilators Oren-Pines contracted to sell to New York state.

Binyamin declined to comment to BuzzFeed.