The US Department of Justice has shared details of two separate instances of fraud against the government relating to the overpriced sale of IT services and contracts as part of its ongoing investigation into IT manufacturers, distributors and resellers.
A Baltimore federal grand jury has returned indictments against two of the six defendants and charged the other four.
The fraudsters were accused of targeting key government agencies, including the Department of Defense (DoD) and the intelligence community.
Six individuals charged over defrauding US government
The first of the two, Victor M Marquez, was charged with wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud and major fraud. The Maryland-based IT company owner and two of his associates allegedly created “determined, non-competitive and non-independent” bids to ensure that Marquez’s unnamed company could win.
Marquez was accused of wire fraud conspiracy (worth up to 20 years in prison), wire fraud (adding another 20 years) and major fraud (accounting for 10 years’ prison time) by the federal grand jury.
In a separate incident, Breal L Madison Jr was charged with conspiracy, bribery of a public official, mail fraud and money laundering, defrauding his employer and the US government out of more than $7 million alongside two of his associates.
Madison hid much of his money behind two shell companies; the DoJ added that he also funded a luxury yacht, a Lamborghini and several other vehicles with the money.
Madison faces prison sentences of up to five years for the conspiracy count, 15 years for each bribery count, 20 years for each mail fraud count and 10 years for each money laundering count.
The DoJ did not share specific details about the nature of the fraud, including contract details and parties affected.
Check out the best cloud hosting providersBoost your company’s security with the best endpoint protection softwareUS Treasury claims to have won back billions of dollars lost to fraud using AI