You might be surprised to know that many of our contract fraud investigations start when our special agents detect discrepancies in the Postal Service’s massive facilities portfolio. That’s how this case began: our special agents found a contractor’s invoices just didn’t add up.

An Atlanta-based company had been providing USPS maintenance repair services for facilities in Georgia and four neighboring states. The service agreement contract allowed the contractor to mark up its services by a certain percentage if it used subcontractors. But instead of sticking to the agreement, the owner started an egregious fraud, submitting fraudulent invoices to inflate the cost of repairs over about five years. 

The work was performed at the facilities, but the owner claimed his employees had done the work when, in fact, he subcontracted it out for lower rates than what he reported. He routinely marked up prices well above what the service agreement allowed, sometimes as much as 40 percent. And he didn’t just forge invoices and fake certificates indicating the work was done in-house — he also concealed the use of his subcontractors altogether. In total, he submitted almost 900 invoices, receiving about $2.9 million in payments. More than $730,000 of that was stolen from the Postal Service through overbilling.

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“We are pleased to have contributed to this investigation and applaud the exceptional work by the United States Attorney’s Office for protecting both U.S. Postal Service funds and the integrity of our repairs and maintenance program. Special Agents of the USPS OIG will continue to aggressively investigate those who would engage in fraudulent activities designed to defraud the Postal Service.”

– Kenneth Cleevely, ESAC
U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General

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