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US contractor accused of fraud still winning big Afghan projects
On July 31, 2006, an employee of the Louis Berger Group, a contractor handling some of the most important U.S. rebuilding projects in Afghanistan, handed federal investigators explosive evidence that the company was intentionally and systematically overbilling American taxpayers.
Neither the whistleblower's computer disk full of incriminating documents nor a trail of allegations of waste, fraud and shoddy construction, however, prevented Louis Berger from continuing to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts.
In fact, two months after the government learned of the employee's allegations, the U.S. Agency for International Development tapped Louis Berger to oversee another $1.4 billion in reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan.
Louis Berger's alleged overbilling, a practice which dates at to least the mid-1990s, swelled to tens of millions in lost tax dollars, according to a person familiar with the probe who spoke to McClatchy on the condition of anonymity because the allegations are the subject of a sealed court case.
Court documents, however, reveal that the Justice Department is negotiating a deal that would "aid in preserving the company's continuing eligibility to participate" in federal contracting in Afghanistan and elsewhere.