Immediately after delivering the first batch of tanks in November 2004, Stoffel alerted the Pentagon to irregularities regarding the way his company was being compensated. In a November 30, 2004 e-mail to a senior assistant of Petraeus, Stoffel stated, "If we proceed down the road we are currently on, there will be serious legal issues that will land us all in jail". The Iraqi Ministry of Defence's method of payment gave rise to his suspicions that Iraqi officials were receiving kickbacks. The Ministry was routing payments through Raymond Zayna, a French-Lebanese businessman with a company called General Investment Group, who claimed to be acting as an escrow agent under power of attorney, but later claimed to be a partner of Wye Oak. Stoffel also alleged that the Ministry was forcing him to use preferred sub-contractors. By November, Stoffel was owed $24.7 million from the Ministry. His case was part of a larger trend involving middlemen and kickbacks in the Iraqi government and the rebuilding process.