Earlier this week, the DOJ announced that it filed a civil forfeiture complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California “seeking the forfeiture of a mansion located in Beverly Hills, California, alleged to have been purchased and renovated with approximately $30 million in proceeds of a scheme to defraud the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), pay bribes to an official of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and violate U.S. money laundering laws.”

As stated in the release, “from 2016 through 2020, a Virginia-based defense contractor and others engaged in a corrupt scheme to obtain more than $700 million from DLA for fuel deliveries to the U.S. military during Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The Erbil International Airport (EIA) located in Kurdistan, where Kurdish Peshmerga forces provided internal security and controlled entry to the facility, served as a critical delivery point for fuel used by the U.S. military in Iraq and Syria during the campaign.

According to this report, the Virginia company at issue is DGC International (which describes itself as a premier provider of Global Defense solutions to the Federal Government and its partners worldwide). According to this report, the DOJ/FBI began investigating DGC International in 2020.

The complaint alleges that officers of the contractor agreed to pay General Mansour Barzani (pictured), a senior Peshmerga official, a bribe of $0.25 per liter for exclusive access to deliver jet fuel in Kurdistan for the U.S. military and coalition forces and received hundreds of millions of dollars under DLA contracts. During the same period, the contractor’s competitors were blocked from accessing EIA for jet fuel deliveries on behalf of DLA, and DLA issued one-time-buy contracts to the contractor often at noncompetitive and greatly inflated prices.

The complaint alleges:

“During in and around 2016 through 2020, Contractor 1 [Virginia company], Co-Conspirator 1 [a joint venture partner], and others engaged in a corrupt scheme and conspiracy to obtain and retain DLA fuel services contracts and more than $700 million from DLA, and to exclude others from competing for and performing under DLA contracts, by paying Barzani to corruptly provide Contractor 1 exclusive jet fuel supply access to the Erbil International Airport (“EIA”) in Erbil, Iraq, and by concealing the scheme from DLA. Proceeds of the DLA payments that Contractor 1 obtained as a result of the scheme were transferred to Co-Conspirator 1 and then to the NYJD Trust for the benefit of Barzani.”