Army investigates NG recruiting fraud
The Washington Post reports that the Army is investigating the “Recruiting Assistance Program” which involved National Guard soldiers who got a bonus for convincing their friends to join the Guard;
Army criminal investigators are probing the actions of more than 1,200 individuals who collected suspect payouts totaling more than $29 million, according to officials who were briefed on the preliminary findings of the investigation and would discuss them only on the condition of anonymity. More than 200 officers are suspected of involvement, including two generals and dozens of colonels.
The alleged fraud drew in recruiters, soldiers and civilians with ties to the military who submitted, or profited from, false referrals registered on a Web site run by a marketing firm the Army hired to run the program. Suspects often obtained the names of people who had enlisted from recruiters, claimed them as their referrals, and then kicked back some of the bonus money to the recruiters.
The abuse is feared to be so widespread that Army investigators do not expect to conclude all audits and investigations before the fall of 2016.
The program started in 2005 and paid bonuses from $2000 to $7500 for each warm body that you successfully convinced to wear the uniform and was run by a private contractor, Docupak. According to the Post, it was Docupak that first noticed the signs of fraud and reported it to CID in 2007.
Category: Big Army
Have to tip my hat to the contractor for spotting and reporting this. Of course, I’m guessing they got left out of the kickback loop…..
29000000/1200 Yields $24,167 as an AVERAGE
………..and high producers made much more
Old Tanker: a fair number of contractors are actually conscientious. And it’s also possible the contract had some type of “monitor for indication of fraud” requirement the contractor was required to perform.
What I’m wondering is that if the fraud was first reported in 2007 – why did it take until Feb 2012 to suspend the program?
I signed up for the program when it was implemented. Back then, we got a kit which included a t-shirt (“ask me about the Army”, or something) and referral cards. One Soldier had an article in the Army Times about making $100k through referrals.
I never did refer anyone, and got picked up for recruiting a couple of years later anyway. Never saw the program used much, though it seemed popular.
Just to clarify, I signed up for RAP, not GRAP. Similar (identical?) programs, IIRC.
fm2176: in retrospect, it looks like it’s a good thing you never referred anyone, amigo. Getting caught up in that investigation – even by accident and when squeaky-clean – might not exactly qualify as “fun”.
Help me with my math here but isn’t 2007..uh..7yrs ago?
CID has their work cut out for them, that’s for sure. Our entire battalion was “voluntold” to sign up every single soldier in the GRAP program, and I know there was a LOT of crap like the article mentions going on. A lot of it was found out too, and swept under the rug. But it was shortly after the surge, and we were short on people, so who cares, right? Hopefully some of these people get nailed for it, but I doubt it. Also, wouldn’t there be some kind of statute of limitation on this, especially since a lot of people have probably retired or ETS’d?
E6: most Federal crimes have a 5-year statute of limitations. However, that statute of limitations is extended by 18 USC 3287 for fraud against the US government committed during wartime.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31253.pdf
In other words: it appears the people guilty of this scam are in deep dudu.
@9 – I was wondering about that, thanks. Luckily I never signed anyone up either, but I know a lot who did. Hopefully they didn’t cheat the system, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did. The whole thing was really shoved down our throats, and joes with the most referrals were really rewarded for it, and I think that’s where a lot of this stems from. Wrong yes, but our battalion and company command (and probably most other units too) really created the atmosphere of get as many people as possible, damn the torpedoes type of thing. I’m not surprised by this in the least.
There have already been numerous prosecutions for this in Texas. Here is a story from 2012 http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Ex-soldiers-get-prison-time-for-recruiting-bonus-4021344.php
I have had at least a dozen Soldiers of mine approached by the IG about this and I know there are more cases in the works.
Hondo;
I checked your link and it’s a really good document. I was curious about what ‘war’ legally means, when it starts and when exactly is it considered to be over seeing as no one declares war or signs peace treaties much any more and Page 5 about sums up what a mess that is going to be in court.
More importantly, however, in the appendices, I saw that this was a capital offence in a long list of them:
21 U.S.C. 1041(c) (murder of an egg inspector)
Don’t mess with egg inspectors.
Ian: thanks. CRS actually does a pretty good job at researching and summarizing complex issues. Their reports on a given issue, if they exist, are generally worth reading.
My whole unit was also “voluntarily” signed up for this back in the spring of ’06. I could see back then that this was going to get a lot of people in trouble, so I never made a referral myself.
There is no such thing as “easy money”. Easy money is what kicks in the greed factor in all of us humans.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/July/13-crm-847.html
it’s been going on for a while
Wait, Joe found a way to make money without doing anything? Say it ain’t so!
I slipped my recruiter $5 to let me join 20 years ago…