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In a confidence game that made a mockery of the
United States military’s most secure compound in Iraq, a ring of
Americans posing as contractors and their Nepalese drivers used tanker
trucks, forged documents and sheer brazenness to steal at least $40
million worth of jet and diesel fuel from an Army depot, according to an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Virginia on Friday.
Until
they were caught, the dozen or so men in the ring operated an
astoundingly successful con game in a war zone, the papers contend,
apparently showing up in Iraq with nothing more than fake IDs and a
talent for forging official requisition forms. Each time they filled up
the tanker trucks at the depot in American headquarters near the
Baghdad International Airport, the men would simply drive downtown and
sell the fuel on the local black market, the court papers say.
The papers indicate that in 2007 and 2008 the ring sold at least 10
million gallons of stolen fuel, and probably far more, into a black
market notorious for its connections with Iraqi insurgents. They are
known to control large sectors of that market and to collect a hefty
percentage of its profits.
The operation described in the
indictment contained elements of an international crime thriller and a
Cheech & Chong movie: expletive-filled e-mail messages detailing
payment schedules to ring members; a phony security contractor whose
nickname was Bong; and the forged signature of a military contracting
officer named Sergeant Bonus. The ring members said they worked for a
company called Future Services.
And until federal agents stepped
in, ring members saw no reason to walk away from what they came to see
as easy money, the court documents show. “I don’t see a problem and
this could go on 1-2 years or more,” read one intercepted e-mail
message sent in January 2008 to Robert John Jeffery, who is accused of
belonging to the ring. It was from someone identified only as R. Y. in
the court papers.
Then, with just a twinge of concern, R. Y.
added, “I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t discuss the quasi
legality of what we are doing to anyone.”
The indictment, handed
down Friday in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., charged Mr.
Jeffery, 55, with conspiracy and theft of government property, crimes
that the Justice Department said carried a maximum penalty of 15 years
in prison and fines of $250,000 or more. The investigation — which
included stakeouts by federal agents, intercepted e-mail messages and
interviews with informants — was handled by federal agencies including
the F.B.I. and the National Procurement Fraud Task Force at the Justice Department.
Late last year Lee William Dubois, then 32, of Lexington, S.C., pleaded guilty to participating in the fuel scam,
but few details were available. Little is known about either man. Mr.
Jeffery has recently been living in the Philippines, and his mother,
Dorothy Bates, lives in Neosho, Mo., where a local newspaper reported
that Mr. Jeffery was staying on Friday. Reached by telephone, Mrs.
Bates declined to comment.
The indictment says that perhaps 10
Nepalese drivers and at least half a dozen other men, apparently
Americans and Iraqis, were also involved. One of them, Alfredo Aguilar,
who is mentioned in the intercepted messages as Bong, laid out for
investigators an elaborate scheme in which the Americans would pose as
security contractors protecting the convoys of fuel tankers. Mr.
Aguilar is not known to have been charged with a crime.
The men
posing as security contractors, who carried fraudulently obtained
Defense Department identification cards, showed forged requisition
forms to the American and Iraqi military personnel in the maze of
checkpoints leading to the enormous depot, called the Victory Bulk Fuel
Point, the court papers say. The military personnel would wave the
convoys through.
Left unclear in the court documents is whether
members of the United States military, and in particular the Army, were
duped on a colossal scale or were complicit. But even though it turns
out there really is a Sergeant Bonus — his full name is Sgt. First
Class Irvin G. Bonus — investigators cleared him of wrongdoing.
The papers say that Mr. Jeffery used a form apparently signed by
Sergeant Bonus to get a Defense Department ID card on Dec. 17, 2007.
But in an interview with federal agents, Sergeant Bonus said he was not
in Iraq at the time.
“Bonus stated that he returned to Hawaii in October 2007, where he retired from the U.S. Army in May 2008,” the papers say.
Still, the indictment and accompanying documents do not explain how the
ring was able to repeatedly forge or obtain the signatures of American
military officers on official documents.
An Army spokesman, Lt.
Col. Christopher Garver, said, “As there is ongoing pending litigation
regarding this incident, it would be inappropriate for the Army to
comment at this time.”
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A version of this article appeared in print on April 25, 2009, on page A6 of the New York edition.
