craigepo
05-03-2010, 09:33
Kansas City Star
KABUL, Afghanistan | The road was washed out, its repairs unfinished. Not even started, actually.
And the bill submitted by the Lebanese construction firm was $2 million — payable by Uncle Sam.
Kevin Lynch sat at his desk in Kabul in late 2008, steaming. “Impossible,” he thought. “Outrageous!”
Working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Manhattan, Kan., man had seen bogus bills before, but this “just got my blood boiling.”
Before he cooled off, a corps official, another American and the Lebanese owner of the construction firm would go to jail for a multimillion-dollar bribery and corruption scheme.
Last month at the Pentagon, Army Secretary John McHugh presented Lynch with the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service, the Army’s highest award for a civilian.
And the story of Lynch’s efforts became public.
•••
The Sima Salazar company had submitted six claims — $13.5 million worth — for unexpected security expenses and expanded contracts and that road.
Not an inch of pavement had been laid, and the corps felt it was time to drop the Lebanese firm from the job. That’s when the firm responded with the $2 million demand, in effect saying: “Oh, and by the way, we’re racking up costs of $20,000 a day for every day until you make a decision on this,” Lynch recalled.
Trying to reach Sima Salazar executives, Lynch was channeled to Dinorah Cobos, the company’s new manager in Afghanistan. She said she couldn’t discuss it until after the end-of-the-year holidays.
While he waited, the 20 pounds of claims folders squatted on his desk. The more he looked at them, the more they smelled.
It wasn’t the first problem with the firm. Sima Salazar had stalled on contracts in the past, and he had recommended cutting the company loose.
But Gloria Martinez, the contract administrator in Kabul, had disagreed, saying the corps was partly at fault for overloading the firm.
Instead, she ordered personnel to negotiate far more lucrative termination agreements for Sima Salazar. Lynch said that he raised some concerns about that, too, but that Martinez brushed them off.
By the time the latest $2 million outrage reached Lynch’s desk, Martinez had retired.
Lynch decided to make a call to a local about the status of the road work, he explained to The Star. “It’s very difficult for us to get out and see some of these places.”
He got laughter on the other end, and heard: “We have never been there. You can’t even get there. The bridge is washed out. You’re crazy.”
A 2002 civil engineering graduate of Kansas State University, Lynch joined the corps the following year, taking a position at Fort Riley and then being deployed to Kirkuk, Iraq, where he worked on contracts for a new oil pipeline and buildings at a military camp. Since April 2006, most of his work has been in Afghanistan.
“Everyone in my organization is aware of the bad things that happened in Iraq, the tremendous sums of money paid out in some cases with nothing to show for it,” said the Kansas native. “So we’re constantly vigilant here in Afghanistan.”
And this seemed pretty clearly fraud. He told himself: “I got one of these guys!”
Aware that the FBI was setting up a procurement fraud unit in the country, he and his supervisor took the case to them. Initially the agents weren’t impressed, but they called back to set up a meeting. At that briefing, Lynch brought up the name of the contact with whom he was still to meet. After he uttered the name “Dinorah Cobos,” he said, “they became very interested.”
Unknown to the Corps of Engineers, where she had worked a quarter-century, Gloria Martinez had a sister — Dinorah Cobos.
In that meeting, the fuzzy history of Sima Salazar suddenly was clarified for Lynch.
Showing up for Afghan reconstruction work in 2007, the firm had instantly become one of the theater’s biggest players.
It submitted amazingly textbook-perfect proposals and won high-profile projects but often failed to deliver.
The way it worked, court documents say: Martinez gave her sister inside information about upcoming bids, ensuring that Sima Salazar would win contracts. When it failed to perform, she made sure it got generous settlements and wasn’t blacklisted from future bids.
For this, Raymond Azar, the president of Sima Salazar, gave the sisters jewelry and shopping bags filled with cash. He also gave Cobos lucrative jobs, private school tuition for her children and a luxury condo in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The sisters apparently pocketed $400,000.
FBI agents declined to comment for this article, but Lynch said he met with Cobos — wearing an FBI wire.
His prepared message: He had more power than his job title suggested, was upset with supervisors, planned to leave the corps and was broke.
But, the agents emphasized, it had to be Cobos who broached the idea of bribery.
He got off to a slow start, he said, “but by the end of this thing, it was like I was living a separate life when I was talking to her. … I could lie easily.”
The FBI agents, he said, told him: “‘Go with it, man! There’s no rules here — well, there’s a few rules; you can’t entrap. Outside of that, you can lie.”
More than three months passed before Lynch suggested he might like to go into a private firm, perhaps like Sima Salazar. Soon, Cobos said, Azar wanted to meet him.
“This guy, the president, he was the politician type — all smiles and b.s. and handshakes. They gave me the bottle of wine. They gave me the box of truffles. He gave me a big fat Cuban cigar,” Lynch said.
Lynch said Azar conceded that underbidding jobs had brought trouble and told him, “We need a lifeline and you’re the man — you’re going to save us.”
After Azar left the meeting, Lynch told Cobos that he could fix many of the firm’s problems but asked why he should.
Cobos, he said, drew a large dollar sign next to a blank line on a sheet of paper, then slid it across the table. It was caught by a camera hidden in an overhead smoke detector.
They discussed details: a 1.5 percent kickback on any bogus claim he got approved, and a delay in work on other contracts, including an Afghan National Army commando facility, until the fraudulent claims were paid. She suggested he set up a bank account in Dubai.
The FBI wanted a bribe actually made — and wanted it made inside the United States.
Cobos told Lynch she would give him a suitcase full of cash in Dubai, but he parried, saying his boss wouldn’t let him leave headquarters in Kabul.
When Lynch began to act impatient, Cobos gave up on Dubai, and $106,887 in three payments appeared in a Virginia bank account the FBI had set up.
The arrest of Cobos and Azar occurred at the Green Beans Coffee shop at Camp Eggers, a large military base across the street from the corps compound in downtown Kabul.
Martinez was arrested in Gretna, La., where she lived.
All three pleaded guilty in U.S. district courts.
Martinez, who in January was sentenced to five years in prison, had to forfeit $62,000 and 15 pieces of jewelry, plus a Rolex watch valued at $25,000 or more.
“I really liked her professionally at the time,” said Lynch, seeing the episode as a tragedy.
Cobos, 52, was sentenced to two years. Azar, 45, got six months, and his firm was fined more than $650,000. It was banned from future contracts.
Back at work eyeballing contracts, Lynch reflected that he was not a “hard-core” kind of guy and regretted how people had ruined their lives.
“There’s definitely a human side of me that doesn’t want to see a 60-year-old woman go to prison for five years. That’s pretty scary.”
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/05/02/1918975/kansan-honored-for-exposing-corruption.html
KABUL, Afghanistan | The road was washed out, its repairs unfinished. Not even started, actually.
And the bill submitted by the Lebanese construction firm was $2 million — payable by Uncle Sam.
Kevin Lynch sat at his desk in Kabul in late 2008, steaming. “Impossible,” he thought. “Outrageous!”
Working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Manhattan, Kan., man had seen bogus bills before, but this “just got my blood boiling.”
Before he cooled off, a corps official, another American and the Lebanese owner of the construction firm would go to jail for a multimillion-dollar bribery and corruption scheme.
Last month at the Pentagon, Army Secretary John McHugh presented Lynch with the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service, the Army’s highest award for a civilian.
And the story of Lynch’s efforts became public.
•••
The Sima Salazar company had submitted six claims — $13.5 million worth — for unexpected security expenses and expanded contracts and that road.
Not an inch of pavement had been laid, and the corps felt it was time to drop the Lebanese firm from the job. That’s when the firm responded with the $2 million demand, in effect saying: “Oh, and by the way, we’re racking up costs of $20,000 a day for every day until you make a decision on this,” Lynch recalled.
Trying to reach Sima Salazar executives, Lynch was channeled to Dinorah Cobos, the company’s new manager in Afghanistan. She said she couldn’t discuss it until after the end-of-the-year holidays.
While he waited, the 20 pounds of claims folders squatted on his desk. The more he looked at them, the more they smelled.
It wasn’t the first problem with the firm. Sima Salazar had stalled on contracts in the past, and he had recommended cutting the company loose.
But Gloria Martinez, the contract administrator in Kabul, had disagreed, saying the corps was partly at fault for overloading the firm.
Instead, she ordered personnel to negotiate far more lucrative termination agreements for Sima Salazar. Lynch said that he raised some concerns about that, too, but that Martinez brushed them off.
By the time the latest $2 million outrage reached Lynch’s desk, Martinez had retired.
Lynch decided to make a call to a local about the status of the road work, he explained to The Star. “It’s very difficult for us to get out and see some of these places.”
He got laughter on the other end, and heard: “We have never been there. You can’t even get there. The bridge is washed out. You’re crazy.”
A 2002 civil engineering graduate of Kansas State University, Lynch joined the corps the following year, taking a position at Fort Riley and then being deployed to Kirkuk, Iraq, where he worked on contracts for a new oil pipeline and buildings at a military camp. Since April 2006, most of his work has been in Afghanistan.
“Everyone in my organization is aware of the bad things that happened in Iraq, the tremendous sums of money paid out in some cases with nothing to show for it,” said the Kansas native. “So we’re constantly vigilant here in Afghanistan.”
And this seemed pretty clearly fraud. He told himself: “I got one of these guys!”
Aware that the FBI was setting up a procurement fraud unit in the country, he and his supervisor took the case to them. Initially the agents weren’t impressed, but they called back to set up a meeting. At that briefing, Lynch brought up the name of the contact with whom he was still to meet. After he uttered the name “Dinorah Cobos,” he said, “they became very interested.”
Unknown to the Corps of Engineers, where she had worked a quarter-century, Gloria Martinez had a sister — Dinorah Cobos.
In that meeting, the fuzzy history of Sima Salazar suddenly was clarified for Lynch.
Showing up for Afghan reconstruction work in 2007, the firm had instantly become one of the theater’s biggest players.
It submitted amazingly textbook-perfect proposals and won high-profile projects but often failed to deliver.
The way it worked, court documents say: Martinez gave her sister inside information about upcoming bids, ensuring that Sima Salazar would win contracts. When it failed to perform, she made sure it got generous settlements and wasn’t blacklisted from future bids.
For this, Raymond Azar, the president of Sima Salazar, gave the sisters jewelry and shopping bags filled with cash. He also gave Cobos lucrative jobs, private school tuition for her children and a luxury condo in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The sisters apparently pocketed $400,000.
FBI agents declined to comment for this article, but Lynch said he met with Cobos — wearing an FBI wire.
His prepared message: He had more power than his job title suggested, was upset with supervisors, planned to leave the corps and was broke.
But, the agents emphasized, it had to be Cobos who broached the idea of bribery.
He got off to a slow start, he said, “but by the end of this thing, it was like I was living a separate life when I was talking to her. … I could lie easily.”
The FBI agents, he said, told him: “‘Go with it, man! There’s no rules here — well, there’s a few rules; you can’t entrap. Outside of that, you can lie.”
More than three months passed before Lynch suggested he might like to go into a private firm, perhaps like Sima Salazar. Soon, Cobos said, Azar wanted to meet him.
“This guy, the president, he was the politician type — all smiles and b.s. and handshakes. They gave me the bottle of wine. They gave me the box of truffles. He gave me a big fat Cuban cigar,” Lynch said.
Lynch said Azar conceded that underbidding jobs had brought trouble and told him, “We need a lifeline and you’re the man — you’re going to save us.”
After Azar left the meeting, Lynch told Cobos that he could fix many of the firm’s problems but asked why he should.
Cobos, he said, drew a large dollar sign next to a blank line on a sheet of paper, then slid it across the table. It was caught by a camera hidden in an overhead smoke detector.
They discussed details: a 1.5 percent kickback on any bogus claim he got approved, and a delay in work on other contracts, including an Afghan National Army commando facility, until the fraudulent claims were paid. She suggested he set up a bank account in Dubai.
The FBI wanted a bribe actually made — and wanted it made inside the United States.
Cobos told Lynch she would give him a suitcase full of cash in Dubai, but he parried, saying his boss wouldn’t let him leave headquarters in Kabul.
When Lynch began to act impatient, Cobos gave up on Dubai, and $106,887 in three payments appeared in a Virginia bank account the FBI had set up.
The arrest of Cobos and Azar occurred at the Green Beans Coffee shop at Camp Eggers, a large military base across the street from the corps compound in downtown Kabul.
Martinez was arrested in Gretna, La., where she lived.
All three pleaded guilty in U.S. district courts.
Martinez, who in January was sentenced to five years in prison, had to forfeit $62,000 and 15 pieces of jewelry, plus a Rolex watch valued at $25,000 or more.
“I really liked her professionally at the time,” said Lynch, seeing the episode as a tragedy.
Cobos, 52, was sentenced to two years. Azar, 45, got six months, and his firm was fined more than $650,000. It was banned from future contracts.
Back at work eyeballing contracts, Lynch reflected that he was not a “hard-core” kind of guy and regretted how people had ruined their lives.
“There’s definitely a human side of me that doesn’t want to see a 60-year-old woman go to prison for five years. That’s pretty scary.”
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/05/02/1918975/kansan-honored-for-exposing-corruption.html