Not the Sharpest Tool in the Shed
Psst! Wanna make some easy money? Here – just change the numbers on this voucher, collect the higher amount, pay out the lower, and pocket the difference!
Yeah – someone actually tried that one. And it was someone who really should have known better.
Former Army CPT Abuzuike O. Ukabam, to be precise. He deployed to Iraq in 2006. While deployed he was a pay agent for local contractors.
According to a recently-unsealed indictment Ukabam made a few dollars on the side while he was deployed. If you consider around $110,000 a few dollars, that is.
Seems Ukabam was paying contractors, upping the numbers on the invoice submitted to DFAS, and pocketing the difference. I guess he never heard of a contract close-out – or an audit. Or maybe he figured he’d be long gone before anyone figured things out and that no one would be able to find him when they did.
He figured wrong. Ukabam was arrested in Los Angeles and is expected to be returned to Houston, TX, for trial.
Dumbass.
Category: Dumbass Bullshit, Shitbags
Apparently, Ukabam didn’t pay attention too closely at the pay agent class…Dumbfuck.
Burn him, really bad Joe
Ok NCO’s, what have you guys been doing to the officer corps?! Back in the “old corps” days I had a few rather harsh words for my ‘boot’ louie’s when they screwed up. A Cpt. did this? Some NCO someplace has something to answer for.
HOW the f*** did he ever get thru Officer Basic, much less make Cpt?
@ #3 Yat Yas 1833. Don’t blame the NCO corps for this douchebag’s actions. I could drown him in integrity and that will just get us a drown douchebag. There’s no saving some of these idiots from themselves. I’m willing to bet my stripes that no NCO told him/taught him how to do this. I know because 1) it’s wrong and 2) he got caught…
Back in 2004-2005 I carried hundreds of thousands of dollars on me for just this purpose, as well as weapons buy back programs. Why didn’t I go to jail? Because it wasn’t my money! I kept receipts and documented everything because I din’t want to go to jail either. This Captain was greedy and stupid, and that’s a bad combination. Karma’s a bitch.
Sorry, but back in the day, it always seemed like it was the Finance/Disbursing types who always pulled this shit. It was especially bad in the day when people got paid in cash at sea.
I don’t know how many times I read about Disbursing Officers off of USS Buttscratch or whatever to go over the hill in the PI, etc., with $100K-plus cash on them.
Yat Yas 1833: ARMYMP has a good part of the answer to your question. There are literally tens of thousands of CPTs in the Army. In any population, a douchebag or two will slip through.
A second part is that, at least in the Army, O3s have barely been through any kind of real “weeding out” process at all. Only the true idiots and absolute blatant low-lifes manage not to make CPT. Promo to 1LT is administrative and is virtually automatic barring evidence of something rising to the level of “show cause for retention”. And the selection board for CPT isn’t much better – the selection rate to CPT is well above 90%, if I recall correctly – so quite a number of marginal officers make CPT. The real “weeding out” generally takes place at MAJ.
A third factor is that it’s generally at the rank of CPT before you start having an opportunity to control serious amounts of $$$ if you work in a field where you deal with $$$. As a 2LT or 1LT, my impression is that’s rather uncommon. So it’s generally not until that level where someone who’s got integrity issues will have a chance to defraud on a scale that he/she might find tempting.
IMO, what we had here was a fairly dumb SOB with integrity issues who managed to make it to CPT, either through keeping his nose clean and/or blind luck. He then ended up in a job with access to serious $$$, and wasn’t smart enough to see that his “perfect scheme” – wasn’t so perfect.
Wow! I was the TIF pay agent for my NPTT team as a SSG and even I, a dumb, enlisted 11B knew better than to try some stupid shit like that
It’s funny that this happens more in pay branch than anywhere else. I worked 92-Yankme my entire nine. At times, I had over half a million signed to me in property alone, not including the vehicles and trailers.
Did I collect an “extra shit” box? Yeah, what supply sergeant doesn’t have their squirrel stash? Though, I think the most expensive item I had in it was an ACH (Army Combat Helmet). Heck, I even somehow got a groin protector for an IBA (don’t ask me how).
When I first took over the Supply Daddy position at my last post (a Brigade Support Battalion), I found the property book so dicked up that a COMET team would have just crucified all the 92-series and called it good after looking through the first page. There was an entire rack of M4s that weren’t even listed. The serials tracked them to a Minnesota National Guard unit… but I was in Oregon! Took me a year to get the entire thing unfucked and I didn’t steal a dime. Though, I did acquire ninety-six shelter halves that were slated to be destroyed (and donated them to Boy Scouts).
Why is it that this fucknut thinks he can actually use a paper trail to get away with that crap? That’s what a paper trail is for, to catch stupid people doing stupid things! And a Captain? Really? I thought CPTs were just starting to recover from the lobotomy they received when they became 2LTs?
How do they get away with it? They think no one is checking up on them or what they do, that’s how. They forget about audit trails and other checkpoints and think that they can get away with it before they get caught.
Somewhere in Iraq 2006:
“CPT Ukafuckski, were the hell are you”, yelled supply corp COL Iron Fist.
“Go get me some coffee CPT”.
“Right away Sir, 2 sugars and cream, just the way you like it Sir”, says CPT Ukafuckski as he is dirty dicking his CO cup.
“You will make a fine senior officer someday Ukafuckski”, beamed COL Iron Fister as he pondered his end of tour award facilitated by the good work of his junior officer.
First of all he Isnt a CPT so get all your facts straight. Second of all these are just the charges. Until his day in court you should keep our judgements for yourself. You would think that fellow military men would have each others back. you are already set to have him burn in hell without a fair trial. but then again why do you care. you just want to seem tough and big and bad. look in the mirror before you continue to judge others…
Observer: I did think before posting the article above. Then again, I also never tried to defraud the USG out of over $100k. So I don’t feel too bad about pointing the finger at some tool who apparently tried to do exactly that and got caught.
And I think you need to work on your reading comprehension, fella. Ukabam indeed appears to have been a Captain in the US Army at some point who’s since left the service – hence my use of the term “former CPT” above. Check the linked article.