Back in 1996, a concerned father from Pakistan/ Afghanistan area sent us three brothers to United States for higher education. Youngest was 17 and me, the oldest, 26 with a Civil Engineering degree.  

The way our culture is, this trip was really a time traveling trip in future. I still remember, when we came out of the Airport, there were no "Bay Watch" girls greeting us. We were picked up by a Vietnam’s decent driver. My youngest brother asked where are all those high rise buildings we used to see on Television.

My dad has been involved in gemstone mining in Pakistan and Afghanistan since 1968. When I came here, I remember, I used to go on internet at my college (which was a really new thing for us), and share my culture history and gemstones coming out of our land to different news bloggs. Surprisingly, I found so much interest that one day one gentleman place an order of several thousand dollars for newly discovered Peridot mine. I got another gentleman from New York who wanted to visit the Mines. That’s how the business started here in United States.

I left my city of Los Angeles dream DOT job. It was an exciting business venture. Back in 1996, i was proud to host half Jewish half christen dealer in the dangerous mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan,

Unfortunately, as the time passed, things were not working out. I got my final blow in September 2001. I told my family that this confusion will put us all in risk and let me go back to my engineering career in United States.

In 2009, when there was this all economic melt down occurring. I was working as Project Engineer in publicly traded engineering firm with 40 thousand employees. One day I was so frustrated with all this melt down and adjustment i had to go through in my work place. I went to my boss and wanted him to lay me off. The chief Financial officer of one of the firm we had recently acquired, asked me what I would do after i quit. I said, i have this family business and i would try to make it back on track. With in two weeks, Earnie, the CFO, brought together a team of an Indian Lawyer and an Indian financial guru and an American Sales guru and  Mercari Traders was born.

Here you will find some old stories and the new one after the evolution. We need your support and that’s why we want you to be part of all this by sharing all our old experiences with lot more new one.

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