12/11/2009

News / Former DOD Contracting Officer Sentenced to 110 Months in Prison for Filing False Tax Returns

WASHINGTON – A former civilian employee of the U.S. Department of Defense was sentenced today to 110 months in prison for filing false tax returns in which he failed to report more than $2.4 million in income, announced Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer and Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division Christine A. Varney.

Tijani Ahmed Saani, 53, was also ordered to pay a $1.6 million fine and serve one year of supervised release following his prison term. Saani was also ordered to pay $816,485 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Saani was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Judge Richard J. Leon.

Saani, a former resident of Kuwait City, Kuwait, and dual U.S./Ghanaian citizen, pleaded guilty on June 25, 2009, to five counts of filing false tax returns, one for each tax year from 2003 through 2007. According to court documents, Saani admitted failing to report at least $2.4 million in taxable income during this time, while he served in Kuwait as a contracting officer for the Department of Defense. According to the indictment to which Saani pleaded guilty, he worked on detail from 2002 until 2007 at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. Saani also admitted he failed to report his ownership interest in foreign bank accounts in five different countries, including Ghana, Switzerland, the Jersey Channel Islands, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Saani used these accounts to help conceal his unreported income, and to send and receive wire transfers totaling more than $3.5 million.

This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Richard B. Evans and Kathryn H. Albrecht of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Trial Attorneys Mark W. Pletcher, Emily W. Allen and Ryan Danks of the Antitrust Division’s National Criminal Enforcement Section. Assistance was also provided by the Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs.

The case is being investigated by IRS – Criminal Investigation, Army Criminal Investigation Division, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI and the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

Today’s sentencing is part of the Department’s ongoing investigation into procurement fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Department’s National Procurement Fraud Initiative, announced in October 2006, is designed to promote the early detection, identification, prevention and prosecution of procurement fraud associated with the increase in contracting activity for national security and other government programs.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2009/December/09-crm-1328.html

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