Yes, it's a local story and doesn't involve an outrageous amount, but because of set asides and preferential treatment fraud like this is practiced widely.

Zitat

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A Richland business awarded millions of dollars worth of work at Hanford has paid $235,000 to resolve allegations it served only as a front company to bid for a subcontract.

The Department of Justice reached the settlement with Sage Tec and its owner Laura Shikashio shortly after reaching a settlement agreement with another Hanford subcontractor accused of being involved in the alleged scheme.

Washington Closure Hanford, a former Department of Energy environmental cleanup contractor at the Hanford nuclear reservation, was required by DOE to award some of the work in its contract to small, disadvantaged businesses, such as woman-owned businesses.

Sage Tec, owned by the wife of a former vice president of Federal Engineers & Constructors (FE&C) of Richland, was awarded two subcontracts by Washington Closure as a small, woman-owned business, according to a federal lawsuit.

But most of the work was not done by a small, woman-owned business, but by FE&C, according to the lawsuit.

[snip]

Sage Tec had been awarded a $4.5 million subcontract in November 2010 to clean up chromium contamination near Hanford's C Reactor.

However, Sage Tec had no relevant experience, no equipment and no employees other than its owner, according to the legal complaint. All it had to offer was its name and status as a woman-owned small company, federal prosecutors said.

FE&C employees, who stayed on that company’s payroll, performed most of the work, prosecutors said in 2013.

Two years later, Washington Closure awarded Sage Tec a $15 million subcontract for cleanup of contaminated structures, soil and pipelines in the 300 Area just north of Richland, but Sage Tec still had only one employee and no equipment, according to the Department of Justice complaint.

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http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local...e177542526.html