Former Supervisory Contracting Officer Arrested In Navy Bribery Scandal

The U.S. Justice Department released the below link:

A former senior federal contracting officer was arrested this morning for conspiracy to commit bribery in connection with his alleged role in a scheme to steer contracts and benefits to Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA), a defense contracting firm headquartered in Singapore.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Laura E. Duffy of the Southern District of California, Director Andrew L. Traver of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and Deputy Inspector General of Investigations James B. Burch of the Department of Defense (DCIS) made the announcement.

“Today’s arrest in this ongoing investigation demonstrates our continued resolve to root out all of the corrupt officials involved in this bribery scheme,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell.  “As alleged, Paul Simpkins misused his position as a contracting officer at the U.S. Navy to obtain bribes of cash, air travel, hotel rooms, and prostitutes, and his actions tarnish the reputation earned by the vast majority of U.S. Navy officers and enlisted and civilian personnel.”

“With the arrest of Paul Simpkins, who was recently among the Defense Department’s high ranking civilians we have uncovered yet another tentacle of this pervasive bribery scheme,” said U.S. Attorney Duffy.  “The more we learn about the extent of the greed and corruption, the more determined we are to eviscerate it.”

“As we've mentioned previously, the GDMA investigation is far from over,” said Director Traver.  “NCIS will follow the evidence wherever it leads, to bring to justice those who were involved in perpetrating this massive fraud on the Department of the Navy and the American taxpayer.  Active leads remain and NCIS will stay on the case until our work is done.”

“As the filing of today's Criminal Complaint and subsequent arrest of Paul Simpkins shows, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and its law enforcement partners will continue to identify and investigate those individuals who seek to defraud the U.S. taxpayer," said Deputy Inspector General of Investigations Burch.  “Any individual, regardless of position, who allowed Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd. to prosper at the expense of the American taxpayer, will be brought to justice.”

Paul Simpkins, 60, of Haymarket, Virginia, is the latest individual to be arrested in connection with a corruption probe involving the U.S. Navy, GDMA, and its owner, Leonard Glenn Francis.  At this morning’s hearing, United States Magistrate Judge Jones of the Eastern District of Virginia ordered Simpkins to be detained pending a bond hearing set for Feb. 4, 2015.  To date, seven individuals, including Francis, and GDMA have entered guilty pleas as part of the investigation. 

According to a criminal complaint unsealed today, Simpkins held several manager-level contracting positions throughout the federal government, including Supervisory Contract Special at the U.S. Navy Regional Contracting Center in Singapore from April 2005 through June 2007, and manager in the Department of Defense’s Office of Small Business Programs from December 2007 to August 2012. 

The complaint alleges that between May 2006 and September 2012, Simpkins accepted several hundred thousand dollars in cash and wire transfers, travel and entertainment expenses, hotel rooms and the services of prostitutes.  In return, Simpkins allegedly helped steer lucrative U.S. Navy contracts to Francis and GDMA, advocated for and advanced the interests of GDMA in contract disputes, and assisted in preventing GDMA’s competitors from receiving U.S. Navy business.

The complaint specifically alleges that, beginning in early 2006, Simpkins and Francis held a series of meetings at a hotel in Singapore in which Francis agreed to provide Simpkins with things of value in return for help in steering lucrative ship husbanding contracts to GDMA.  Specifically, the complaint alleges that Francis paid Simpkins by hand-delivering over $150,000 in cash and by making several wire transfers to a bank account held in the name of Simpkins’s wife at the time.  To conceal the true nature of the wire transfers, Simpkins allegedly used an email account belonging to his mistress to advise Francis of the routing and account information of the bank account belonging to his wife.   

In return for the things of value, Simpkins allegedly used his influence within the U.S. Navy to benefit GDMA, including by helping GDMA to secure lucrative ship husbanding contracts to service U.S. Navy vessels in Thailand and the Philippines.  In addition, Simpkins allegedly interceded on GDMA’s behalf in contract disputes with the U.S. Navy.  The complaint specifically alleges that in 2006, Simpkins’s subordinate recommended that GDMA’s husbanding contract in Thailand not be extended due to “many exceedingly high cost” items.  Simpkins allegedly overruled his subordinate and extended GDMA’s contract.

In another example, Simpkins allegedly instructed U.S. Navy officials in Hong Kong to discontinue the use of meters that monitored the volume of liquid waste that GDMA removed from U.S. Navy ships under its husbanding contracts.  The use of these meters would have ensured proper accounting of the actual amount of waste removed to ensure that no overbilling occurred.  Simpkins also allegedly instructed a U.S. Navy official not to review invoices that GDMA submitted in connection to a recent port call in Hong Kong after Francis complained that U.S. Navy personnel were asking questions.     

The charges contained in a complaint are merely accusations, and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The ongoing investigation is being conducted by NCIS and DCIS.The case is being prosecuted by Director of Procurement Fraud Catherine Votaw and Senior Trial Attorney Brian R. Young of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark W. Pletcher and Robert S. Huie of the Southern District of California.

Those with information relating to fraud, corruption or waste in government contracting should contact the NCIS anonymous tip line at www.ncis.navy.mil or the DOD Hotline at www.dodig.mil/hotline, or call (800) 424-9098.

Mark Twain On Crime

Edward A. Grainger at criminalelement.com offers a piece on Mark Twain humorous like at crime.

Lionizing Murderers” (from Sketches New and Old, 1875)

There’s no shortage of killers who have become ‘celebrities’ in our lifetime, the most infamous probably being Charles Manson—his likeness has been plastered on T-shirts, and he even penned a song that appeared on a Guns N’ Roses album. Well, nothing is new and in Twain’s short story “Lionizing Murderers” the unnamed central character (described as a public lecturer) goes to Madame, a fortune teller, who recounts his bouts of crime—theft and arson, among other things—and predicts more dreadful developments for the lecturer when he goes to Congress! His future holds prison time, followed by his hanging. But she cushions the blow somewhat by reassuring him that “an imposing procession composed of clergymen, officials, citizens generally, and young ladies walking pensively two and two and bearing bouquets and immortelles” will be with him to the bitter end.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2015/01/mark-twain-on-celebrity-killers-the-sane-insane-and-meddling-misguided-magistrates-short-fiction-satire-edward-a-grainger?image

International Community United Against ISIL, Strikes Making Difference, Pentagon Says

Jim Garamone at DoD News offers the below piece:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2015 - The battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is not a U.S. war, it is a large international effort to defeat a crazed and barbaric ideology, Pentagon press secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said here today.

ISIL burned a captured Jordanian pilot alive in January. Kirby condemned the murder, and said it in no way will stop the effort against the terrorists. "We know that they have the ability to continue to generate young men that are attracted to this group and this ideology, and that's going to be a long-term problem," he said during a Pentagon news conference.

"It's going to take a while to get at the ideology, which is the real center of gravity here," the admiral said. "You're not going to do that through bombs and airstrikes. That doesn't mean the bombs and airstrikes aren't going to keep happening. They are."

A Coalition of 60

Kirby disputed allegations that the war against ISIL is a U.S. war. "I think a coalition of 60 nations proves that it's not," he said. "We're not the only ones involved in this in trying to get rid of this group."

U.S. air strikes on the group continue to be effective, he said. As indigenous forces become more capable, the attrition will continue. Still, ISIL is capable of bringing more people to the fight. "We are going to stay committed to this for the long-term, and it is going to be a long-term fight," the admiral said.

Judging the coalition effectiveness against the group is difficult. "A better judgment of the strength of this group is their behavior," he said. "So, we've seen them change the way they operate on the ground. They are hiding more. We've seen them not travel around in convoys. ...They are not as agile as they once were. We know that they've lost literally hundreds and hundreds of vehicles that they can't replace."

Coalition strikes have also worked to hit the group's main source of income oil. "We assess that it's no longer the main source of revenue," Kirby said.

ISIL is largely in a defense posture now. The group launched a small offensive against Kirkuk over the weekend and it lasted a day, Kirby said. They took no new ground. "And they're not on Kobani anymore," the admiral said. "They are losing ground."

The group is worried about lines of communications and supply now. "This is a different group than it was seven months ago," he said. "I'm not saying they are not still dangerous. I'm not saying they are not still barbaric, but they are different. Their character, their conduct, their behavior is different. And that is a sign of progress."

FBI: Drug Kingpin Dethroned

The FBI web site offers a piece on their takedown of a drug kingpin in Miami.

For years, Alvaro Lopez Tardón, a Spanish national, was living the high life in Miami—fancy cars, seaside condos, designer jewelry, and expensive leather goods. But it all came crashing down in the summer of 2011 when he was named in a U.S. federal money laundering indictment as the head of an international narcotics trafficking enterprise. His illicit enterprise was believed responsible for distributing more than 7,500 kilos of South American cocaine in Spain and laundering more than $14 million in illegal drug proceeds in the United States.

Last fall, after being tried and convicted on numerous money laundering charges, Tardón was sentenced to an astonishing 150 years—exchanging his spacious South Beach penthouse for a small federal prison cell where he will spend the rest of his life. And in addition to the sentence, a $14 million money judgment and a $2 million fine were entered against him, and his assets are in the process of being forfeited. 

Tardón made his initial mark in the drug trade back in the 1990s, when he—along with his brother Artemio—worked for a ruthless drug trafficker in Spain. By the early 2000s, the Tardón brothers began a bloody feud with their boss and set about building their own criminal enterprise. They were ultimately successful—Alvardo directed the enterprise’s illegal activities primarily from Miami, where he visited often, and second-in-command Artemio ran things from Madrid.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015/february/drug-kingpin-dethroned/drug-kingpin-dethroned?utm_campaign=email-Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=fbi-top-stories&utm_content=400425 

Media History: On February 2nd In 1863, A Reporter Named Samuel Clemens Became Mark Twain

David Shedden at poynter.org offers a piece on the day former reporter Sam Clemens became the writer Mark Twain.

What do Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain have in common?

They were all reporters.

Twain began his journalism career with his real name, Samuel Clemens, but on February 2, 1863, he first signed his work as Mark Twain.

You can read the rest of the piece and watch several videos via the below link:

http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/316117/today-in-media-history-in-1863-a-reporter-named-samuel-clemens-became-mark-twain/

Note: Clemens/Twain, the author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Roughing It and Life On the Mississippi, is one of my favorite writers.

Revealed: How Infamous Double Agent Kim Philby Was Behind Italian Nuclear Physicist's Defection To The USSR With Tip-Off That FBI Were Trailing Him

Ollie Gillman at the British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a piece on a new book that claims the notorious British traitor and spy Kim Philby tipped off Italian Bruno Pontecorvo, who later fled to the Soviet Union.

For decades the mystery of why Italian nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo defected from the Allies to the USSR has baffled Cold War historians.  

 

The scientist, while on holiday in Italy with his wife and children in 1950, suddenly disappeared, resurfacing years later on the side of the Iron Curtain.

 

But now a new book has revealed that Pontecorvo was being trailed by the FBI for suspected communist activity, and has claimed that he fled to Russia after being tipped off by none other than infamous double agent Kim Philby. 

 

Pontecorvo, a prominent nuclear physicist in Britain, the U.S. and Canada, shicked the world when he defected to the USSR. After re-emerging five years later in Moscow, he eventually said he left for ideological reasons - but the real reason why he fled remained shouded in mystery for more than 60 years.

 

Frank Close, a scientist who believes that Pontecorvo could have gone on to win a Nobel prize had he stayed with the West, told the Observer that the FBI were investigating the Italian at the time of his disappearance.

 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2934876/How-infamous-double-agent-Kim-Philby-Italian-nuclear-physicist-s-defection-USSR-tip-FBI-trailing-him.html 

 

 

You can also read Ben Macintyre's outstanding book on Philby, A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. 

A Terrorist Operator On The Black Side: CIA And Mossad Killed Senior Hezbollah Terrorist in 2008 Car Bombing

Although not as well known as bin Laden, Imad Mughniyah was a terrorist with a good bit of  American blood on his hands.

Adam Goldman and Ellen Nakashima at the Washington Post offers a piece on the killing of the Hezbollah terrorist in 2008.

On Feb. 12, 2008, Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s international operations chief, walked on a quiet nighttime street in Damascus after dinner at a nearby restaurant. Not far away, a team of CIA spotters in the Syrian capital was tracking his movements.

As Mughniyah approached a parked SUV, a bomb planted in a spare tire on the back of the vehicle exploded, sending a burst of shrapnel across a tight radius. He was killed instantly.

The device was triggered remotely from Tel Aviv by agents with Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, who were in communication with the operatives on the ground in Damascus. “The way it was set up, the U.S. could object and call it off, but it could not execute,” said a former U.S. intelligence official.

... The United States has never acknowledged participation in the killing of Mughniyah, which Hezbollah blamed on Israel. Until now, there has been little detail about the joint operation by the CIA and Mossad to kill him, how the car bombing was planned or the exact U.S. role. With the exception of the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, the mission marked one of the most high-risk covert actions by the United States in recent years.

... Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Iraq when Mughniyah was killed, said: “All I can say is that as long as he drew breath, he was a threat, whether in Lebanon, Iraq or anywhere else. He was a very intelligent, dedicated, effective operator on the black side.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-and-mossad-killed-senior-hezbollah-figure-in-car-bombing/2015/01/30/ebb88682-968a-11e4-8005-1924ede3e54a_story.html