bid rigging | The Contracting Education Academy

August 10, 2020 By cs

HUD IG warns agencies to watch out for bidding fraud

Procurement officials should be watching for signs of bid rigging and collusion, according to a report from the Housing and Urban Development Department inspector general.

The report on anticompetitive bidding is part of the HUD Officer of Inspector General Fraud Bulletin series, which provides guidance on how to spot and deter bad actors seeking to abuse the uncertain circumstances of the pandemic. Though the report does not indicate whether anticompetitive bidding schemes have taken place during the pandemic, it encourages procurement officers to keep their eyes open.

“In a disaster environment, such as the one created by the COVID-19 pandemic, competitive pricing can be impacted by the lack of competition, the scarcity of products, the urgent need to acquire products and services quickly, and the lack of substitute product availability,” the report reads. “Although this does not mean that anticompetitive fraud schemes have occurred, the fluid environment increases the risk that they will.”

Collusion prevents the market from allowing the product with the best quality at the best price from rising to the fore during the bidding process, according to the report. Anticompetitive schemes include practices like submitting “token bids” to make it look as though the winning company beat out the competition, when really it was chosen by colluding parties behind the scenes. Other schemes involve agreements to abstain from bidding or withdraw from the bidding process in order to ensure one company wins.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2020/07/hud-ig-warns-agencies-watch-out-bidding-fraud/167263/

March 6, 2020 By cs

Contracting official sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for role in bribery scheme to rig VA contracts

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs official Dwane Nevins has been sentenced to serve 18 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for corruption offenses. He took cash bribes and then extorted undercover small business owners so that he could have his “Christmas.”

We first reported on the allegations against Nevins in September 2018. Then, in January of this year, we reported on the sentencing of a businessman who conspired with Nevins. Sentencing of one more individual in this case is scheduled later this month.

According to Court records, Dwane Nevins — a small business specialist at the VA’s Network Contracting Office in Colorado — agreed to take bribes offered by co-defendants Robert Revis, Anthony Bueno, and an undercover FBI agent to help them manipulate the process for bidding on federal contracts with the VA.

Revis and Bueno, working with Nevins, agreed to submit fraudulent bids from service-disabled-veteran-owned small businesses under contract with their consulting company so that federal contracts would be set aside for only those companies. As Bueno put it, the conspirators would then “own all the dogs on the track.”
Nevins, Bueno and Revis worked to conceal the nature of the bribe payments by either kicking back to Nevins a portion of the payments made to their consulting company, or by asking their consulting company’s clients to pay Nevins for sham training classes related to federal contracting. At one of those sham trainings in Las Vegas, Nevada, Nevins accepted a $4,500 cash bribe from the undercover FBI agent.

After complaining about not being paid by Revis and Bueno for his participation in the scheme, Nevins used his official position at the VA to extort approximately $10,000 from an undercover FBI agent, telling the agent that “the train don’t go without me. You know what I mean? I’m the engine. I’m the caboose. I’m the engine room.” Nevins also told the undercover FBI agent “this is a business and businessmen need to get paid . . . . so I can have my Christmas, you know what I’m saying?”

Anthony Bueno was previously sentenced in this case to 30 months imprisonment. He was also sentenced to 63 months imprisonment for his role in a separately indicted wire fraud scheme in which he used false representations about investment opportunities to take over a million dollars from several victims.

Robert Revis pleaded guilty in April 2019 to an Information charging him with a single count of supplementing the salary of a federal official. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 2, 2020.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-co/pr/former-veterans-affairs-official-sentenced-18-months-federal-prison-role-bribery-scheme

November 11, 2019 By cs

DOJ announces ‘strike force’ to combat procurement crimes

The Justice Department announced last week the creation of a new interagency partnership to combat antitrust and procurement crimes.

The Procurement Collusion Strike Force will “deter, detect, investigate, and prosecute antitrust crimes and related criminal schemes,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim at a press conference. The strike force will use a “district-based task force organization model” to facilitate cooperation between the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, 13 Attorneys’ Offices, FBI and inspector general offices for Defense and Justice Departments, General Services Administration and U.S. Postal Service.

“When government contractors collude with each other to rig bids for government contracts at the federal, state, or local level, it leads to artificially higher prices for those goods or services. When the government has to pay those artificially higher prices, all American taxpayers are paying for it,” said Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen at the press conference. “Strike Force will better inform federal, state, and local government procurement communities about these criminal activities and how to detect and report them.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2019/11/justice-department-announces-strike-force-combat-procurement-crimes/161103/

November 16, 2018 By AMK

Captain from Georgia is latest Navy officer caught in ‘Fat Leonard’ corruption

The 350-pound Leonard Glenn Francis — known in Navy circles as “Leonard the Legend” for his wild-side lifestyle — spent decades cultivating relationships with Navy officers, many of whom developed a blind spot to his fraudulent ways. In the past three years, 33 defendants have been charged and 22 have pleaded guilty, many admitting to accepting things of value from Francis — also known as “Fat Leonard” — in exchange for helping the contractor win and maintain contracts and overbill the Navy by millions of dollars.

On Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018, another Navy captain pleaded guilty to criminal conflict of interest charges and a former Navy master chief was sentenced to 17 months in prison today on corruption charges. The defendants are among the latest U.S. Navy officials to plead guilty and be sentenced in the expansive corruption and fraud investigation involving foreign defense contractor “Fat Leonard” Francis and his Singapore-based ship husbanding company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA).

Jeffrey Breslau of Cumming, Georgia pleaded guilty to one count of criminal conflict of interest before U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino of the Southern District of California. Breslau was charged in September 2018. Retired Master Chief Ricarte Icmat David of Concepcion, Tarlac, Philippines, was sentenced by Judge Sammartino, who also ordered him to serve a year of supervised release and pay restitution of $30,000. David was charged in August 2018 and pleaded guilty in September to one count of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud.

According to admissions made as part of his guilty plea, from October 2009 until July 2012, Breslau was a captain in the U.S. Navy assigned as director of public affairs for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, headquartered in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. As part of his duties, Breslau was involved in devising the Navy’s public affairs communications strategy, and provided public affairs guidance to Pacific Fleet components and other Navy commands. From August 2012 until July 2014, Breslau was assigned to the commanding officer for the Joint Public Affairs Support Element in Norfolk, Virginia, where he was responsible for leading joint crisis communications teams.

Breslau admitted that from March 2012 until September 2013, while serving in the Navy, he provided Francis with public relations consulting services, including providing advice on how to respond to issues and controversies related to Francis’s ship husbanding business with the Navy. These included issues related to port visit costs, allegations of malfeasance such as the unauthorized dumping of waste, disputes with competitors, and issues with Pacific Fleet and contracting personnel. During the course of his consulting agreement with Francis, Breslau authored, reviewed or edited at least 33 separate documents; authored at least 135 emails providing advice to Francis; provided at least 14 instances of “talking points” in advance of meetings between Francis and high ranking Navy personnel; and “ghostwrote” numerous emails on Francis’s behalf to be transmitted to Navy personnel. During the course of this consulting agreement, Francis paid Breslau approximately $65,000 without Breslau disclosing the agreement to the Navy, Breslau admitted.

As part of his guilty plea, David admitted that he was assigned various logistics positions with the Navy’s Seventh Fleet, including with the Fleet Industrial Supply Center in Yokosuka, Japan from June 2001 to July 2004; on the USS Essex from July 2004 to August 2007; on the USS Kitty Hawk from September 2007 to August 2008; and on the USS George Washington from September 2008 to July 2010. In these positions, David was responsible for ordering and verifying goods and services for the ships on which he served, including from contractors during port calls. Throughout this period, David received from Francis various things of value, including five star hotel rooms during every port visit, he admitted.

David further admitted that he repeatedly facilitated fraud by allowing Francis and GDMA to inflate the husbanding invoices to bill for services never rendered. For example, David instructed Francis to inflate invoices for the USS Essex’s anticipated November 2007 port visit to the Philippines. As David transitioned to a new position aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, on or about May 8, 2008, Francis’s company paid approximately 84,637.00 Hong Kong Dollars (HKD) for hotel reservations at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong for Navy personnel assigned to the USS Kitty Hawk including 10,396 HKD for David’s four-night stay in a Harbor View Room, David admitted.

Francis pleaded guilty in 2015 to bribery and fraud charges, admitting that he presided over a massive, decade-long conspiracy involving “scores” of U.S. Navy officials, tens of millions of dollars in fraud and millions of dollars in bribes and lavish gifts, including luxury travel, airline upgrades, five-star hotel accommodations, top-shelf alcohol, the services of prostitutes, Cuban cigars, Kobe beef and Spanish suckling pigs.

The case was investigated by DCIS, NCIS and the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

For earlier reports on this scandal, see: https://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/?s=fat

Source: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-us-navy-captain-pleads-guilty-and-former-master-chief-petty-officer-sentenced-sweeping

October 15, 2018 By AMK

Two intelligence officials and a business owner indicted for bid rigging

Three individuals have been indicted by a federal grand jury on a variety of charges relating to procurement fraud and unlawfully disclosing and obtaining bid information concerning a contract estimated to be worth almost $1.5 million.

Kevin Kuciapinski was an active duty U.S. Air Force Major working at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Randolph Stimac was an employee of the National Security Agency (NSA). Both were stationed at the Aerospace Data Facility-Colorado on Buckley Air Force Base. The third defendant, Mykhael Kuciapinski was the owner and CEO of Company G, a company that attempted to do business with the U.S. Government. She was also the wife of Kevin Kuciapinski through July 2015.

According to the indictment released by the Justice Department, beginning on August 1, 2013, and continuing through November 24, 2015, the defendants conspired with each other to unlawfully obtain and disclose source selection information prior to the award for services related to a contract for services related to NSA, a category of intelligence that involves the collection, processing, and dissemination of foreign communications in order to obtain foreign intelligence necessary to the national defense, national security, or the conduct of the foreign affairs of the United States. The alleged plan and purpose of the conspiracy was for Kevin Kuciapinski and Randolph Stimac to provide a competitive advantage to defendant Mykhael Kuciapinski’s bid or proposal by providing her information and source selection information for the contract in question.

This case was investigated by the NRO Office of the Inspector General, NSA, Defense Criminal Investigative Services, Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and the IRS-Criminal Investigation.

The charges contained in the indictment are allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-co/pr/two-intelligence-officials-and-business-owner-indicted-bid-rigging

Procurement officials should be watching for signs of bid rigging and collusion, according to a report from the Housing and Urban Development Department inspector general.

The Justice Department announced last week the creation of a new interagency partnership to combat antitrust and procurement crimes.

Three individuals have been indicted by a federal grand jury on a variety of charges relating to procurement fraud and unlawfully disclosing and obtaining bid information concerning a contract estimated to be worth almost $1.5 million.

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