WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 DOJ-Iraq-fuel-theft
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A former Department of Defense (DoD) contractor pleaded guilty today to participating in a scheme to steal fuel worth approximately $39.6 million from the U.S. Army in Iraq, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Matthew Friedrich and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Chuck Rosenberg.
Lee William Dubois, 32, a resident of Lexington, S.C., entered the plea in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., before Judge Gerald Bruce Lee. Dubois pleaded guilty to a one-count information charging him with theft of government property. According to information contained in plea documents, Dubois served as a captain in the U.S. Army until July 2007. He was hired on Sept. 23, 2007, by a DoD contractor based in Kuwait to represent the contractor's interests with regard to new projects in Iraq and was terminated by the contractor in March 2008.
In his plea, Dubois admitted that between July 2007 and May 2008, he and his co-conspirators, purportedly representing DoD contractors in Iraq, used fraudulently-obtained documents to enter the Victory Bulk Fuel Point (VBFP) in Camp Liberty, Iraq, and presented false fuel authorization forms to steal aviation and diesel fuel from the VBFP for subsequent sale on the black market. According to plea documents, the United States owns and operates the VBFP in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The VBFP supplies aviation fuel and diesel fuel to both military units and U.S. government contractors operating in and around the VBFP. To retrieve and transport the stolen fuel from the VBFP, Dubois admitted he and his co-conspirators employed approximately 10 individuals to serve as drivers and escorts of the trucks containing the stolen fuel. These individuals were able to enter the VBFP illegally by using government-issued common access cards. Dubois admitted he obtained the cards by falsely representing to the U.S. Army that the drivers and escorts were employees of a DoD contractor, when, in fact, they were not employed by any government contractors. In addition, Dubois admitted he went to the VBFP and presented false documents authorizing his co-conspirators to draw fuel. For two months during the scheme, Dubois admitted he served as the lead escort for the stolen fuel. According to information contained in the plea documents, during the course of the scheme, Dubois and his co-conspirators stole approximately 10 million gallons of fuel worth approximately $39.6 million. Dubois received at least $450,000 in personal profits from the subsequent sale of the fuel on the black market.
At sentencing, Dubois faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Linick, Acting Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division's Fraud Section, and Trial Attorneys Andrew Gentin and Bradford Geyer. The investigation of this case is being conducted by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the FBI and members of the National Procurement Fraud Task Force and the International Contract Corruption Task Force (ICCTF). The National Procurement Fraud Task Force, created in October 2006 by the Department of Justice, is chaired by Acting Assistant Attorney General Friedrich and was designed to promote the early detection, identification, prevention and prosecution of procurement fraud associated with the increase in government contracting activity for national security and other government programs. Established in October 2006, the ICCTF is a joint agency task force that deploys criminal investigative and intelligence assets worldwide to detect and investigate corruption and contract fraud resulting primarily from the global war on terror (GWOT).
SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice
