ANC fraud

I just read the DOJ Press Release that Bob posted last week about "Virginia man gets 37 months for bribery and kickback scheme involving government contracts."

At first, I assumed that, since the Corps of Engineers was involved, and since the fines were in the $10 million ballpark, per individual, that it was on a contract for construction in Afghanistan.

NOPE.

Simple little IT contract for the USACE, performed in NOVA and DC, apparently.

How does a Contractor scam $20 Million plus on a $40 Million contract, and the COR doesn't notice ? Oops. The COR was one of the conspirators.

How do they pull it off without the CO getting suspicious ?

I didn't find an answer to that one.

What broke this case open ?

Was it just good detective work ?

Partly.

Seems one of the conspirators forced his son to get involved in hushing up a cousin who threatened to rat them out. That raised the first red flags.

Then the poor little Sub who was doing ALL of the work on a Kt for $44 M, but only got paid less than half of that amount, went crying to the CO (I'm guessing) that it wasn't fair.

But how was this even possible ?

It was an Alaska Native Corp. Sole Source.

In my anecdotal experience, Requiring Activities like those precisely because they permit abuse of COR discretion.

Maybe we learn something from this ?