Six IT contractors accused of swindling Uncle Sam out of millions

The US Department of Justice has charged six people with two separate schemes to defraud Uncle Sam out of millions of dollars connected to IT product and services contracts.  The two cases, involving three individuals each, were the first time the DoJ issued charges connected to an ongoing investigation involving IT …

[mikus]

"There is no place for fraudsters and crooks scheming to manipulate the government bidding process for personal gain."

Too bad everyone in government does exactly that eventually, usually equally for good or bad. IT procurement systems are so dysfunctional either way they end up having to game the system to get anything done, it's just down to the nature of the managers whether they use them for good or bad.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

>This office and our partners will use all available resources to hold accountable those who would undermine and distort the government's procurement of goods and services,

Unless they're called Oracle / CapGemini / Palantir / Boeing

[Anonymous Coward]

Their crime was not being Haliburton

You need to know a guy.

[KittenHuffer]

"German cops bust DDoS site, nab operators"

Does this mean that the German cops are 'Deniers of Distributed Denial of Service' sites?

If they got our cops involved would that then be 'Distirbuted'?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: "German cops bust DDoS site, nab operators"

And are also Deutsche, Distributed Deniers of DDoS sites

[Anonymous Coward]

Amateur!

“Madison reportedly used the stolen funds to purchase luxury items, including a yacht and Lamborghini Huracan, which the government plans to seize if he's convicted.”

Did he think no one would notice?

[Plest]

Re: Amateur!

Reminds me of Richard Pryor's character in Superman III. Pryor rips off his company by funnelling money through the payroll system, the head of the corp ( played by Robert Vaughn ) finds out someone is on the make and he says, "He'll want to lie low after swindling so much money, unless he's a complete moron of course!", he looks out the window to see Pryor screaming into the car park in a bright red Ferrari!

[munnoch]

Wire fraud ...

... seems to cover a very wide range of offences.

Is the definition any crime involving something with wires? Which nowadays would be absolutely everything...

Or does it need to involve transmission by wire? What if the offender used wifi? Or fibre?

[GBE]

Re: Wire fraud ...

Is the definition any crime involving something with wires?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_and_wire_fraud

[munnoch]

Re: Wire fraud ...

"causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce"

Oh goody, wire fraud also includes wireless fraud...

[MachDiamond]

Procedure

The government makes the whole of procurement process so opaque and stuffed with arbitrary rules that it becomes easy for a clever person to game the system. Not a smart person, as can be seen here, but clever enough to get the contracts. One of my clients is a minority, woman-owned business. Her husband runs the business for the most part. Not that she couldn't, but she's only been doing some and looking after the twins which are both being recruited by top colleges now. Another one of their businesses is under his name as it doesn't do any government related business so it's easier to run with his name on the top of the org chart. The premise was noble, but there's no way to implement that premise without being racist or excluding people based on things that are often no measure of the person they are.

Should the only hardware store in town have to bid on city contracts if they are charging catalog prices for items? To me, it makes no sense to support the businesses in other cities, but it's the law that over a certain purchase amount they have to get several bids and choose the least expensive.