Handling everything from residential to corporate to commercial to government business, massive Alabama based trucking company was recently discovered as deceiving the US government. Since 2007, Covan World-Wide Moving and its affiliate, Coleman-American Moving Services, were paid by the government based on the items they are moving and just how much they weigh. According to the lawsuit that was filed by the government, this company and its affiliate has “systematically falsified weight certificates, shipping records and invoices by increasing shipment weights”.
The lawsuit states that the “defendants’ false claims scheme has resulted in a substantial loss to the U.S. and its taxpayers.” This is a long-running problem and a scheme that is both complicated and expansive in its nature. The suit continues; “Since just 2009, defendants and their affiliates are believed to have billed the federal government for $723 million worth of shipping and relocation services provided to the nation’s uniformed service personnel.”
The $723M was already paid to this company by the US government since 2009. It is going to be important to make sure that things are allocated properly. It’s hard to imagine that a US-based taxpaying company would continuously be “skimming off the top” of the government they personally pay into to put a few more dollars in the pocket of the company they work for but it appears that is just what happened here. The fraudulent scheme was brought to the attention of the government by an internal employee, making this a whistleblower lawsuit.
It is currently not known just exactly how much money the government seeks in retribution for the civil penalties. Based on the 437 examples of record falsification in the Augusta location where the whistleblowers were based and each violation carrying a penalty of up to $11K, the amount for this settlement is estimated to be at least $4M, with the whistleblowers in this case to receive 25% of the settlement money for their hand in bringing these alleged record falsifiers to justice.
