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.

  • Chetzemoka
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    621 year ago

    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…

    • @Xanthobilly
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      111 year ago

      When you own a piece of land, the feds own you, when you own all the land, you own the feds.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      1 year ago

      I used to work near the Davis-Montham Air Force Base down in Tucson. Worked with a couple of guys who were Air Force maintenance tax during the weekends and they worked with me during the weekdays. I used to drive right through the boneyard on my way to work.

      Anyways, they used to black out the Air Base on a regular basis when they were landing various top secret or black project aircraft. These included drones as well as maybe stealth aircraft. So, even though this was visible from the highway they were still operating secretive aircraft into and out of that base.

      My favorite aircraft that they landed that I saw while driving by one day was watching an x-47 Pegasus land. That was a surreal experience and I only figured out what aircraft it was a few months ago! I saw one of those land back in 2002.

      As far as intelligence being gathered, their number of interesting drone encounters that have been published on the war zone over the last 10 years, including one instance at an airbase and the Phoenix nuclear power reactor where drones outran helicopters that were sent to investigate. Some shady stuff going on.

      Edit - also, they spent about a billion dollars on the land around the Travis Air Force Base. That’s a lot of money!

      • Flying SquidM
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        111 year ago

        an x-47 Pegasus

        For those curious like me, it was an unmanned attack plane that never saw service but looks cool.

    • wanderingmagus
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      51 year ago

      Just because someone who isn’t cleared can see it, doesn’t mean it’s not classified, and doesn’t mean it’s declassified. They really emphasized that after the minecraft server leak.

    • @marmo7ade
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      1 year ago

      deleted by creator

        • @SCB
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          -11 year ago

          They’re 10 miles from the bay, so unless this is a really long term investment, I don’t think that’s it.

  • @Bookmeat
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    341 year ago

    deleted by creator

  • @[email protected]
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    311 year ago

    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?

    • @[email protected]OP
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      1 year ago

      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?

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        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

        • Entropywins
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          51 year ago

          Yeah I’d be a bit concerned of something around minot afb myself… used to be stationed there back in the early 2000’s

          • @[email protected]
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            51 year ago

            Yeah a 400ft tall silo overlooking Minot AFB is concerning. It also has nothing to do with OPs article about Travis AFB

            China does enough shady shit that we don’t need baseless accusations being thrown around

        • @[email protected]OP
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          41 year ago

          I see, thank you for correcting me. It does look like these two entities purchasing land are separate, although it is not impossible for them to both be funded by China.

      • Overzeetop
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        21 year ago

        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.

  • Can_you_change_your_username
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    291 year ago

    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.

        • @agitatedpotato
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          31 year ago

          If you allow land to be turned into an investment opportunity why would anyone whos got that kind of money put a regular house there and sell it when they could just make it a permanent investment at the cost of other people not being able to buy houses to live in.

        • @KaiReeve
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          21 year ago

          This is the real issue right here. It’s more than just Airbnb’s, though, it’s all ‘investment real estate’.

          The solution would be to exponentially increase taxes for those who own multiple properties, but property tax is typically handled on the county level, so this would be tricky. Also, the people who could implement such a tax all own multiple properties, so there’s a conflict of interest there.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 year ago

        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.

        • @afraid_of_zombies
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          01 year ago

          Yeah none of that is true. We are nowhere near the limit of how fast we can build and build cost go up when mother fucking office workers are “working” remotely. My company caught one of our reps lying about doing a site walk. Also burbs are everywhere. Might as well call rice Japanese Grain while you are at it, but what do I know. Not like I was quite literally in Frankfurt Germany this month and saw them.

    • @SCB
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      11 year ago

      Lowering retail investment will not lower the cost of housing - quite the opposite.

  • @LordOfTheChia
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    281 year ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • @LordOfTheChia
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      241 year ago

      The company isn’t a mystery, however the ownership, leadership, and investors of the company are unknown.

      Only the lawyers are known so far.

    • @dogslayeggs
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      11 year ago

      OK, so if the company isn’t a mystery, then who are their owners or directors? Where did they get $800 million?

  • chaogomu
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    41 year ago

    Travis isn’t even the best base in California to spy on. Beale AFB is just up the road and has more interesting shit.

    • @skepticalifornia
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      11 year ago

      I live up the road from Beale and there is always weird shit going on there.

  • @Duder167
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    41 year ago

    I always hear the old lady from Beavis and butthead do America when I hear the name Travis

  • @LexiconDexicon
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    31 year ago

    What if it’s a wealthy Native American just buying their land back? Probably not, but it would be peak irony

  • @[email protected]
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    01 year ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • Ech
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        1 year ago

        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.

    • @[email protected]
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      41 year ago

      Not if Cuba bought the land to blast out “Havana Laugh Tracks: Top 100 Havana Syndrome Beats”.

        • @dogslayeggs
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          31 year ago

          A) If another country is sponsoring the buying of property surrounding a military base of another country, that is world news in my mind.

          B) If you are just complaining about this being US specific, then what news would in your mind be “world” news? Would news about India count, or is that India specific?

  • @markr
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    -171 year ago

    So the only options are Bad China Bad! or somebody anticipating ocean front real estate in 80 years?

    See false dichotomies for Your Fallacy.

    • @Zron
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      41 year ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        51 year ago

        False Dichotomy again. The options aren’t to ignore or not ignore. OP is simply suggesting that there might be a much simpler less sinister reason.

        • @Zron
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          -11 year ago

          And what’s the advantage to assuming this?

          • @markr
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            41 year ago

            Why does one require an advantage? An advantage over what?

            Uttering fallacies, if intentional, is an effort to persuade with deliberate disregard for the truth. Why would one do that?

            • @Zron
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              41 year ago

              Its basic logic.

              The US has political and economic competition in the globe, and, for some reason, allows those competitors to purchase land in the US.

              An unidentified entity is purchasing huge amounts of land for well above market price near important military and civilian infrastructure.

              Which is more practical, to assume an enemy is doing enemy things and attempting to spy on/sabotage you, or to assume everything is 100% innocent.

              I would much rather myself and my government assume the former until proven otherwise, as assuming the latter only has negative outcomes.

              • @markr
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                -11 year ago

                You have zero evidence that China is involved. Your claim I responded to was that either it was China or a speculator buying beachfront property for 2100. That was a spectacularly ridiculous false dichotomy.

                As you would know If you read the link that explained exactly what Flannery LLC is up to: they are buying agricultural land all over California. There is no mystery here.

                • @dogslayeggs
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                  11 year ago

                  Buying it up at well above market value. Why are they paying too much for land, and where does a company with no known owners/directors have $800 million?

                • @Zron
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                  11 year ago

                  I would like you to quote or link me to the comment where I said such a thing.

                  All I’ve said so far is we shouldn’t assume it’s not china, as we don’t know who it is and assuming everything is hunky dory is naive and dangerous.

                • @Zron
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                  11 year ago

                  I would like you to quote or link me to the comment where I said such a thing.

                  If you actually read my comments. I haven’t said much at all.

      • @dtrain
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        11 year ago

        Otisburg? Otisburg!?

    • @[email protected]OP
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      1 year ago

      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.