lessons learned
Counting Beans
An Air Force lieutenant colonel working in USCENTCOM’s financial division ensures a fishy 7-year-old travel invoice doesn’t mar his flawless fraud examination record.
For me, it was a normal Tuesday at U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) in Tampa, Fla. An Air Force lieutenant colonel, I was working in the financial division. My team of six did the math and read the ever-changing regulations from Congress and DoD in order to pay the bills. We were the bean counters who tracked who got the beans and who got the bill for their beans. I was a certified fraud examiner, and I possessed at my workstation one of the few computers at USCENTCOM with almost unlimited Internet access. This allowed me to do research outside the normal channels. On this particular day, that ability and my skills in fraud examination would be tested.
My boss had a crucial assignment: track down the party responsible for an especially fake-smelling 7-year-old USCENTCOM travel voucher passed down to us from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS). Someone had used this order to fly to Iraq and back, and we wanted the proper party to foot the bill.
The voucher was born at the beginning of Operation Desert Storm. On USCENTCOM official letterhead, it had signatures of fake employees and a fraudulent account code. Apparently, the mission requiring this fake voucher went off without a hitch. Seven years went by. The bill circled the DFAS system.
I tore the voucher apart. It revealed only the date and the name of the agent who had used the order. Social media and military websites led me to him. I got in touch and told him DFAS was looking to collect on this bill. He was unmoved until I told him we could get the IRS to garnish his pay (which happens all the time). He gave up the contractor who hired him.
The agent’s story: After the first contractor was killed in Iraq, he had been given this voucher to quickly get his buddy’s body out of the country before the press heard.
From there, the Internet gave up the contractor’s contact information. I spent weeks wading through various offices and finally spoke with the vice president of the contracted firm. He agreed to pay the bill and assured me his firm did not manufacture the false travel order. So who did? We probably never will know.
Through months of research, I learned little more. But I did learn who didn’t pay
— USCENTCOM. MO
— Robert “Trim” Blair is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel. He lives in Tampa, Fla. For submission information, see page 6.
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72 MILITARY OFFICER APRIL 2012
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