The FBI raided the office of D.C. CTO and the Obama administration CIO, Vivek Kundra. [CNN] (Anantha via Twitter)
Among those arrested in the connected scandal were Sushil Bansal and Yusuf Acar.
Acar is an information security officer who was also, according to online requests for proposals, responsible for contracting. Bansal is listed on the city’s procurement website as the CEO of the Advanced Integrated Technologies Corporation, which was awarded two technology contracts last year worth a total of $350,000.
Acar is from Turkey and Bansal, obviously, from India or of desi origin.
Kundra is the outgoing CTO of the D.C. office and has gone on leave of absence until further notice. [CNN]
More on the scandal after the jump.
[Washington Post]
As the story unfolds, we learn that charges include bribery, ghost workers and kickbacks.
Federal authorities said the conspiracy, which operated for at least a year, worked like this:
Acar approved work with a vendor, such as Bansal’s AITC, to arrange the purchase of goods such as software. The vendor ordered fewer items but billed the District for a larger amount. Bansal, Acar and others then split the proceeds, FBI officials said.Authorities traced more than $200,000 in payments last year from Bansal’s firm to a private company, Circle Networks Inc. The firm is co-owned by Acar, even though he is prohibited from having an interest in any company doing business with the city,
If the evidence turns out to be solid, it appears Bansal also indulged in old fashioned corruption, money in envelopes – desi ishtyle.
After a software deal went through, the FBI agent wrote, the informant received $8,247 from Bansal’s company. In late January, Bansal showed up at the informant’s office and gave him an envelope stuffed with $3,520 in cash because Bansal and Acar had decided to boost his share of the proceeds,
The D.C technology office, of which Kundra was CIO, apparently a budget of $69 million and has 300 employees and an equal number of contractors. The story seems to be that certain people were skimming money of the top and when budgets tightened, the missing money was noticed, leading to the current situation.
Officials conducting the investigation have stressed that Kundra is not involved in the scandal.
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