Intrigue surrounds pending sale of Knoxville's Villa Collina mansion

Other than when one former owner decorated for Halloween and another owner ran afoul of securities regulations, I haven’t thought much about Knoxville’s largest and most talked about house, Villa Collina. (The house even has its own Facebook page.)

My disinterest changed last year when an Afghan military contractor purchased the house from his former business partner, then immediately listed the home for sale at a price $750,000 less than his purchase price. Something didn’t add up.

How did an Afghan military contractor end up owning the largest residence in Tennessee? And why would he buy a house for $10.5 million, then immediately try to sell it for a $750,000 loss? I don’t know, but the story – involving lawsuits, lawyers, a hotly contested divorce and the U.S. war in Afghanistan – is intriguing.

In 2010, Maryville’s Eric Barton and Shafiqullah Koshani (of Kabul, Afghanistan) established a joint venture (Vanquish Worldwide, Inc.) to bid on U.S. Army contracts for military transportation services in Afghanistan. According to court records, rather than submit bids in the name of the joint venture, Barton quietly created a new entity with an almost identical name (Vanquish Worldwide, LLC) and submitted a bid in the name of his new entity – not the original joint venture with Koshani. Barton’s sole entity (the “LLC” Vanquish Worldwide) won the bid and earned all the profits – not the “Inc.” Vanquish Worldwide joint venture between Barton and Koshani.

https://www.knoxnews.com/story/money/columnists/david-moon/2021/07/09/knoxvilles-villa-collina-getting-attention-again-david-moon/7880013002/
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Now here's the interesting part......if you care to read farther into the story. I will publish another link about a bogus lien that's holding up the sale and you can read about that too, because it's also extremely interesting. HOWEVER.....I attempted to ask, in the comments section to the article, if there was a connection between these gentlemen and Erik, Prince of Darkness (I put it politely, not that way LOL) and asked them to please dig deeper. The first time I also asked about the bogus lien. My comment was rejected for "violating our guidelines." I attempted to ask two more times, omitting the reference to the bogus lien and phrasing it differently each time, and each time my comment was rejected for the same reason. How can an innocent question be "violating their guidelines" when all I asked was if the guys were connected to Erik Prince of Blackwater or whatever he calls it now?