Wednesday, April 22, 2009

25 Fraud Investigations Underway

Some U.S. troops tempted by reconstruction cash
By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, April 12, 2009

The Justice Department has secured more than three dozen bribery-related convictions in the awarding of reconstruction contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least 25 theft investigations are underway.
From the news article, it sounds like these investigations all involve funds issued under the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP). It is my understanding that Ultra Services supply contracts - totalling around $10-14 million - were paid with CERP funds. So it's possible someone might be looking into Ryan Manelick's case. But that's really just a guess on my part.

UPDATE:

Coincidentally, the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight held a hearing yesterday titled, Improving the Ability of Inspectors General to Detect, Prevent, and Prosecute Contracting Fraud. Testimony was provided by Mr. Charles W. Beardall, Deputy Inspector General for Investigations, Department of Defense. His testimony, available in PDF, goes into a great amount of detail about coordination and collaboration of the different agencies and organizations involved in fraud investigations.

Statement of Charles W. Beardall PDF
Deputy Inspector General for Investigations
Department of Defense
before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight
on "Improving the Ability of Inspectors General to Detect, Prevent, and Prosecute Contract Fraud"
April 21, 2009

See Page 6:
To date, [Defense Criminal Investigative Service] DCIS has initiated 173 investigations relating to [Department of Defense] DoD operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of these investigations, 41 percent involve procurement fraud offenses; 42 percent involve corruption offenses; and 14 percent involve theft, technology protection, and terrorism.

1 comment:

Jude W said...

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