From the Office of the Inspector General. With $54 billion in annual
expenditures, it's no wonder they uncover so much fraud:
Contract and Grant Fraud Reading Room
One of the strategic goals of the U.S. Department of Transportation
(DOT) is to "Advance America's economic growth and competitiveness
domestically and internationally through efficient and flexible
transportation." In support of this goal, DOT spends more than $54
billion a year on transportation related projects in virtually every
community in the nation.
House and Senate conferees are currently working on a six-year
renewal of the Transportation Equity Act (TEA-21)with proposed
spending authority of $299 billion to rebuild the Nation's surface
transportation infrastructure. Another program, The Aviation
Investment and Reform Act (AIR-21) will commit an additional $40
billion for modernization and stability of our nation's aviation
systems. To protect the integrity of these and other
transportation-related programs against fraud, waste, and abuse, the
Office of Inspector General (OIG), the Department's criminal
investigative element, has made investigating contract and grant
fraud one of its top priorities.
http://www.oig.dot.gov/
From the
Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset
SIGTARP Relief Program Quarterly Report dated April 2009, "Both
from the Hotline and from other leads, SIGTARP has initiated, to
date, almost 20 preliminary and full criminal investigations.
Although the details of those investigations generally will not be
discussed unless and until public action is taken, the cases vary
widely in subject matter and include large corporate and securities
fraud matters affecting TARP investments, tax matters, insider
trading, public corruption, and mortgage-modifi- cation fraud."
Some good news from the Special Inspector General for Iraq
Reconstruction (click
here for the entire report). See Table 4.5 for a list of
charges/convictions.
Custer-Battles Decision
On April 10, 2009, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
ruled that a contractor found to have committed fraud in Iraq could
not avoid paying damages by claiming on jurisdictional grounds, that
the False Claims Act did not apply to its dealings with the CPA. The
Fourth Circuit ruling reversed a district court decision that set
aside a jury’s verdict in 2006 finding that the contractor must pay
about $10 million in damages and penalties to the U.S. government
and two whistle-blowers.41 The decision removes a potential obstacle
to ongoing and future SIGIR investigations.
More investigations are under way: SIGIR Investigations continues to
pursue allegations of fraud, waste, and abuse in Iraq
reconstruction, with 80 open investigations. SIGIR has 6
investigative personnel assigned to Baghdad; 13 at SIGIR
headquarters in Arlington, Virginia; and 13 in offices in
Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Ohio, and
Michigan to support investigations in those areas. To date, the work
of SIGIR investigators has resulted in 20 arrests, 24 indictments,
18 convictions, and more than $35 million in fines, forfeitures,
recoveries, and restitution.
The largest (to date) health care fraud against the government.
Columbia/HCA Settles Fraud Charge agreed to pay the
government $745 million to settle allegations of billing fraud.
The list of fraud against government programs is endless and as long
as their are people handling money, there will always be someone
trying to and succeeding in defrauding the public coffers.
The government is no less susceptible to fraud than everyday
Americans.