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FBI raids office of D.C. CTO, Obama appointee

»dcist.com/2009/03/fbi_raid_lockd···udic.php

WTOP's Mark Segraves has been Twittering from the scene, adding that agents have since moved from the 9th floor OCTO offices to the 10th floor of One Judiciary Square, which houses the Office of the Attorney General. Some employees in the building have been sent home, according to Segraves.

The Washington Post is reporting that an arrest has been made: Yusuf Acar, 40, an information systems security officer for the OCTO, was reportedly taken into custody at his D.C. home this morning by federal agents. Acar had worked for Vivek Kundra, D.C.'s former chief technology officer who was recently named President Obama's federal chief information officer.

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»voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/200···ust.html

D.C. Tech Official Busted in Federal Bribery Sting

An official in the D.C. government's office of the chief technology officer has been arrested in a federal bribery sting, according to law enforcement sources.

Yusuf Acar, 40, was taken into custody this morning by FBI agents at his home in Northwest Washington, the sources said.

Acar serves as an information systems security officer in the D.C. government. He worked for Vivek Kundra, the District's chief technology officer. Kundra recently left D.C. government to become President Obama's federal chief information officer. Kundra's deputy, Thomas Jones, is acting as the interim director, city officials said.

Mafara Hobson, a spokeswoman for the mayor, declined to comment this morning.

Acar, who began working for the city in Nov. 2004, earns $127,468. He is listed as having purchased a house in Northwest Washington for $1.4 million in 2006.

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So, they raided the FORMER employment location of Obama's appointee, and arrested one of the employees of Washington D.C.'s OCTO. So it, at this point in time, has nothing to do with Obama's appointee nor with his current job - if I'm understanding this correctly? He's being mentioned because Yusuf Acar was one of his former employees/coworkers?
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Patriotism is not waving a flag, it is living the ideals

Correct.

A spokesman for the US Attorneys office said the case is "is under seal."

Yusuf Acar is featured in a job fair recruiting video on youtube.com:

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2 arrested in FBI raid

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Obama official NOT a target in FBI raid

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Re: FBI raids office of D.C. CTO, Obama appointee

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FBI - No More Arrests Anticipated

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An aide to President Barack Obama is on leave from his White House job after the FBI raided his old District of Columbia government office Thursday, arresting a city employee and a technology consultant on corruption charges, a White House official said.

The charges were lodged against the two men at a federal court hearing as the FBI finished searching the city's technology office, which was led until recently by Obama's new computer chief, Vivek Kundra.

Kundra is on leave from his White House job until further details of the case become known, according to a White House official speaking on condition of anonymity because the official did not want to publicly discuss personnel matters.

The rest of the details are too juicy to post!
»finance.yahoo.com/news/Source-Ob···083.html

Videos
»www.wtop.com/?nid=428&sid=1622618

Transcript of Vivek Kundra's 2009 FOSE address
Mar 12, 2009
»fcw.com/articles/2009/03/12/kund···ipt.aspx

Snippet from his speech:
"A simple example is an explosion in Web 2.0 technologies. We need to re-engineer on the back end - not the technologies but the staff and the teams within agencies to make sure that they're better positioned to take advantage of some of these technologies and drive hard in that direction.

I know that this is going to be tough. I know it's not going to be easy, and it's not going to happen overnight, especially if you look at the fact that there are over 4 million federal employees and there are over 10,000 IT systems in the government. A lot of hard work and a lot of good work has happened, and what I intend to do is...leverage the federal employees who have dedicated their life's work to moving forward, to really challenging the status quo and not be stuck in bureaucratic quicksand by not tapping into the talent that's there within the federal government because I can tell you, having spent some time within the federal agencies, I've been amazed that some of the smartest people I've ever met in my life are federal government employees.

What happened is [that] over the years, unfortunately, they've been restrained, they've been taught that the best way to survive is not to take any risks, and they haven't been liberated in terms of testing out their ideas and making sure that they embrace innovation on a day-to-day basis.

So that's one. And secondly, the ecosystem of innovation is not going to be limited just to the government but to all the partners that help drive this country forward on a day-to-day basis. The vendors, a lot of whom are in this room: Make sure that you help us move forward on the right path and you call out those initiatives that are not working. If there are problems that are happening, [we] would much rather know upfront, get ahead of the problem, [rather] than engage in a [project] that [is] millions of dollars over budget and a technology that was engineered to fail anyway."

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quote:

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LL Breaks Down the OCTO Allegations

LL’s spent the last couple of hours poring though the affidavit filed by federal authorities in support of the arrests made today in connection with OCTO corruption.

Here’s the headlines:

·The whole scheme was laid bare thanks to the cooperation of an OCTO employee who was introduced into the scheme last March by Yusuf Acar. The employee went to the FBI in August.

·The dollar amount stolen is uncertain, but a company established to collect Acar’s illicit earnings took in almost $300,000. The affidavit highlights suspicious transactions totaling over $600,000.

·Acar said in a taped phone call he was prepared to leave for Turkey and intimated he was stashing money for that possibility.

· Several other unnamed current or former OCTO employees are implicated in the scheme in various ways. Two of them have connections to the Office of the Chief Financial Officer—home of the $50M tax scandal uncovered in 2007.

·The scheme took two forms: ghost payrolling and inflated purchase orders.

·Acar had tapped into District e-mail systems and was intercepting e-mail traffic to and from the Office of the Inspector General in order to monitor whether they had gotten wind of his schemes.

Still want more? You could read the whole thing [PDF] or you could just read these highlights:

—Yusuf Acar was involved in multiple schemes to defraud the District government: “In one scheme, a quantity of goods is ordered by OCTO….The vendor actually orders a lesser number of the item from the distributor, but bills the DC government for the full amount originally requested by OCTO. An OCTO official, such as YUSUF ACAR, falsely certifies that the greater quantity was actually received and the vendor bills the District of Columbia Government for the greater amount and is paid accordingly. The co-conspirators then split the proceeds of the crime. A second scheme involves billing for ‘ghost employees’. These are contract employees supposedly hired by a vendor, such as AITC, to perform work under a specific contract for OCTO. However, these ghost employees never actually perform any work under the contract. The vendor, who is involved in the scheme, bills the DC government for the employees’ hours. An OCTO official, such as YUSUF ACAR, approves the timesheet so that the vendor can be paid. The money is then split between the co-conspirators.”

—”In a recorded conversation on December 10, 2008, YUSUF ACAR states in part, regarding the risk of getting caught, “I mean, I will jump on the next plane, go to Turkey and disappear. That’s fine.” YUSUF ACAR has also stated that he is trying to move approximately $200,000 in cash out of the country to Turkey via diplomatic pouch.”

—Several other entities and OCTO employees are names as being involved in the conspiracies.

· Innovative IT Solutions Inc., a contractor that has occupied office space adjacent to AITC for years and used to sublet from AITC. Last year, IITS did about $220,000 in business with OCTO.

· Circle Networks Inc. “did approximately $2.2 million in business with the DC government,” even though Acar was listed on several documents as having an ownership stake in the company. This was apparently the entity which collected Acar’s ill-gotten gains, which totaled about $200,000.

· ALLNET Systems is a company, owned by a current OCTO employee, “S.E.,” currently applying for cetrified business enterprise status with the D.C. government. The complaint alleges that Acar colluded with “S.E.” to use this company as part of his schemes.

· Network Osiris is owned by a former OCTO employee, “F.A.,” now working for the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, and his wife, “S.A.” “F.A.” used to work with Acar. “ACAR and F.A. generally divided their territory and kept their activities separate, that is, ACAR dealt with contractors, and F.A. dealt with equipment. However, there were times when they worked together to steal money. CW heard that F.A.’s wife had been used as part of a “ghost employee” scheme. Bank records show that F.A. and S.A. both received payments from AITC via direct deposit into an account in the name of Network Osiris from October 2005 to April 2007.”

· “T.S.” is an OCTO employee who used to work for OCFO. She is thought to have knowingly processed false invoices. In a recorded phone call, Acar says that Bansal “basically…take cares of her.”

· “W.M.” is an OCTO employee reporting to Acar. According to the informant, Acar has said that this fellow “is involved and aware” of illicit purchases.

· The informant is also an OCTO employee and an Army veteran; he went to the FBI last summer after Acar asked him to join his schemes earlier that year. “[I]n his role as a seeming co-conspirator, [the informant] has also received payment in these schemes,” which is in control of the FBI.

—The affidavit details one scheme where an employee, “Eric,” leaves OCTO, then Acar and Bansal conspire together with the onformant to cintue to collect his earnings. This causes a conflict, when Acar feels he should get more of the money than Bansal because he (and the informant) are taking on more risk. Says Acar to the informant, “This is beginning, okay? This is just like uh a scratch on the surface. We have a six million dollars. Six million mother [expletive] dollars. You and I should make at least three of that….So, that said, that said. I don’t want to [expletive] you know, you know go halfsies with this, this [expletive].” Later, Acar and the informant would engage in another ghost-employee scheme, hiring an undercover FBI agent as the “ghost.” In a third instance, Acar had a position being filled under another company’s contract transferred to AITC; the position was then “ghosted,” according to the indictment. Later, Acra, Bansal, and the informant conspire to have that position extended in order to squeeze even more money out of it.

—In one illicit purchasing scheme, AITC submitted a quote for 2,000 licenses for some security software, but only contracts with the software provider for 500 licenses. This scheme, too, causes a conflict between Acar and Bansal over just how much of a percentage Bansal deserves—leading to an uncomfortable phone conversation between the informant and Bansal when a check the informant gets turns out to be smaller than he expected.

—Acar, according to the affidavit, was monitoring e-mails being sent and received by the D.C. Office of the Inspector General. In early February, Acar had apparently captured an e-mail containing names of the conspirators. The informant learned and expressed concern about the scheme to Acar, who told him, “I have a rule set anything between OCTO IP range and, and OIG IP range, I capture….Not only capture, and then he runs another rule, that captures data. It queries certain names, my name, your name, our people’s name … some like common names and it pulls up, it gives me the actual daily report.” The informant expressed relief, and Acar said, “So, so when I saw it I was like, what the [expletive], what’s going on [laughter]?…Are we going to jail? (Laughter)”

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quote:

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City Authorized $13M in Payments to Charged Contractor

LL’s been eyeballing city purchase orders this afternoon, trying to suss out some more information about Sushil Bansal, arrested in connection to the OCTO corruption probe, and his company, Advanced Integrated Technologies Corp. (AITC).

Long story short, they’ve done a lot of business with the city.

According to publicly downloadable city records—thanks, Vivek!—the city has authorized more than 160 payments to AITC since 2004 totaling over $13 million. That’s quite a bit more city business than the $350,000 reported by WTOP earlier.

Most of those purchase orders—more than $10 million worth—were submitted by OCTO; in addition, the Department of Motor Vehicles submitted $1.1 million (AITC had done work on DMV’s Destiny computer system), and the transportation department submitted a $97,500 contract in 2005. About $1.7 million in payments were authorized for “equipment leases.” (Note that just because the payments have been authorized doesn’t mean they’ve thus far been paid in full; work could still be underway or yet to start or the contracts could have been modified.)

AITC’s city earnings have been steadily on the rise. In 2004, the District submitted $612,058 in purchase orders to be paid to the company. In 2005, that figure rose to $1,583,888, and in 2006, rose still further to $2,799,426. In March 2007, Vivek Kundra took the reins at OCTO; AITC billings stayed fairly level that year, at $2,824,191. In 2008, however, AITC’s city business nearly doubled, to $5,062,096. So far in 2009, city agencies have submitted three contracts with the company totaling about $300,000.

Another city database lists 14 positions filled since November by AITC under OCTO’s Information Technology Staff Augmentation program. For two of those positions, both systems-security-related, the person was to report to Yusuf Acar, the OCTO employee arrested early this morning.

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March 12, 2009 (Computerworld) WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement officials filed bribery charges today against the District of Columbia's acting chief security officer, along with a one-time D.C. government employee who owns an IT outsourcing company that runs offshore operations in India. Both were later arraigned in federal court.

What is drawing extra attention to this case is its connection to Vivek Kundra, the former chief technology officer for D.C. who last week was appointed by President Barack Obama to be the federal government's first official CIO.

There is nothing in the court documents from today's arraignment to indicate that Kundra had any knowledge of the alleged illegal activity that led to today's arrests. However, NBC News and other media outlets reported late today that Kundra is taking a leave from the federal CIO job until more is known about the FBI's investigation of his former organization.

Arrested this morning was Yusuf Acar, who currently is the District of Columbia's acting chief security officer; police said they found $70,000 in cash in his Washington home. Acar's annual salary is $127,468, according to court documents.

The second suspect arraigned on bribery charges is Sushil Bansal, CEO and founder of Advanced Integrated Technologies Corp. (AITC), a Washington-based outsourcing vendor that has won a number of contracts from the district's IT department. The court documents said that from March 2004 to February of this year, AITC did more than $13 million worth of business with the D.C. government.

Kundra was named CTO in D.C. in 2007. AITC received contracts before and after he was appointed to that job, including the extension of an IT security support deal that involved antivirus deployment and incident response services.

In court, a somber U.S. District Judge John Facciola told Acar that the alleged crimes "speak of bribery" and added that these "are serious federal charges." Acar, 40, said nothing in court other than to state his name.

The U.S. attorney representing the government in the case, Tom Hibarger, told Facciola that Acar posed "a serious risk of flight." According to Hibarger, Acar has relatives in Turkey and had made statements that he was ready to leave the country "and take a large amount of currency with him."

Acar was ordered held without bail. Bansal was released, but ordered not to leave the area.

In an affidavit, the federal government alleged that Acar worked with a vendor to submit a purchase order for one quantity of goods, "and in actuality a lesser quantity [was] ordered and delivered." The scheme was complex and involved adding people to the payroll who didn't exist -- they were called "ghost employees." Payments were allegedly made to those "workers."

Acar is also accused of hiring ghost employees through a vendor and allegedly approving timesheets for them.

In what the government officials described as the "McAfee Software Scheme," Bansal's firm submitted a purchase order for 2,000 units of McAfee Foundstone software, which is used to provide automated scanning and vulnerability assessments, for $104,166. McAfee generated a quote for AITC for the purchase of 500 units of the software at $36,845, but AITC, the provider in this case, charged the D.C. government for 2,000 licenses.

»www.computerworld.com/action/art···=9129582
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Re: FBI raids office of D.C. CTO, Obama appointee

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Just a "heads up" in case some of the readers of this thread do the obvious (like me), and Google "Yusuf Acar". The second result from the top, between the #1 NewYork Times and #3 The Washington Post will be a link that installs the fake Anti Virus / Anti Malware scanner.

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Re: FBI raids office of D.C. CTO, Obama appointee

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Re: FBI - No More Arrests Anticipated