FBI Raids Obama Technology Chief's Former Office, Worker Arrested

WASHINGTON — An aide to President Barack Obama is on leave from his White House job after the FBI raided his old District of Columbia government office Thursday, arresting a city employee and a technology consultant on corruption charges, a White House official said.

The charges were lodged against the two men at a federal court hearing as the FBI finished searching the city's technology office, which was led until recently by Obama's new computer chief, Vivek Kundra.

Kundra is on leave from his White House job until further details of the case become known, according to a White House official speaking on condition of anonymity because the official did not want to publicly discuss personnel matters.

At the court hearing, Yusuf Acar, the acting chief security officer in the city's technology office, was ordered held without bond pending a hearing Tuesday. Prosecutors said $70,000 in cash was found during a search of Acar's Washington home and that he posed a serious flight risk.

Technology consultant Sushil Bansal of Dunn Loring, Va., was released but was ordered not to conduct overseas financial transactions or leave the Washington metropolitan area. Bansal is due back in court on April 21, and prosecutors said they were hopeful that a plea agreement could be reached in his case.

Acar worked under Kundra, Obama's pick to coordinate federal computer systems. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs would not say whether the White House knew the investigation was under way when it named Kundra last week, but called the case "a serious matter."

Mafara Hobson, a spokeswoman for Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, said she was "very confident" Kundra is not a target of the investigation.

Bansal's lawyer, David Lamb declined to comment. It was not immediately clear who would represent Acar in the case.

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Acar, a 40-year-old native of Turkey, had a $127,468-a-year position purchasing the city's computer equipment and lining up contract workers for numerous city agencies, according to court documents.

Authorities say Acar and Bansal, along with others, defrauded the government through a variety of schemes, including billing the city for items that were never delivered and "ghost" contract employees who did not work. The scheme involved Acar approving falsified bills and splitting the money with vendors including Bansal, who submitted them, court documents alleged.

Bansal, a native of India who turns 42 next week, is a former city employee and the founder and chief executive of Advanced Integrated Technologies Corp. The company has offices in Washington and India and did more than $13 million in business with the District of Columbia government in the past five years, according to court documents.

One contract involved providing computer support for the city's Department of Motor Vehicles. The company also was given a contract to upgrade the city's human resources computer records and sold virus detection software to the city.

In August Bansal was named entrepreneur of the year by the Association of Indians in America.

An FBI affidavit supporting the arrest warrants indicates that several other businesses and individuals were involved in the alleged schemes, but the other people are identified only by their initials.

The FBI worked with another employee in the city's technology office, who was in on the scheme and secretly recorded conversations with Acar and Bansal as part of the investigation.

In 2007, federal investigators uncovered a massive embezzlement scheme in the city's tax office.

Men and women dressed in suits and wearing latex gloves could be seen entering and leaving the glass-enclosed lobby of the Office of the Chief Technology Officer on Thursday afternoon.

Even as the raid was taking place, Kundra was giving a speech at FOSE, an annual government technology expo. Kundra said part of his focus is to change the way the government buys technologies from vendors.

____

Associated Press writers Philip Elliott, Donna Borak, Brian Westley and Brett Zongker contributed to this report.

Comments

[marthlois]

Everyone should email HP about this ridiculous headline - IN RED no less!

[KarenT]

People! This investigation has to the with the City offices not the federal government. Ob*ama is not connected. Do some reading!

[themodernleader]

There is a continuing lesson to these centers of corruption being uncovered only after the most dishonest,corrupt and incompetent administration to ever occupy the White House. This lesson should never be forgotten, that is, dishonesty and corruption emanate from the top of an organization and gradually infilitrate every crack and cranny of the enterprise.
Obama must gather together fearlessly honest, independent thinking, courageous and dedicated staff to ferret out the corrupt membership and bring them to their just desserts. It will be an arduous task to again bring credibility and splendor to our declining government. Obama is not afraid. He must exhibit through language and action that sterling and honorable character that commands subordinates to always do the right thing as a matter of habit and conviction.

[Roberto31]

Obsama has filled his administration with tax cheats and incompentent people. Geithner cannot ever get a decent person to work in the Obama adm. I voted for Obama but now realize we put another Jimmy Carter in office and you remember how utterly stupid he turned out to be. Obama is not street smart but only ivory tower smart and that is really dangerous for Amereica. Obam will be a one term president for sure. I hope Romney runs next time. He will smash Obama. Obama is going down in the polls faster than any President in History.

[WADIIAH]

Mccain would've been better? Will Palin/Jindal/Rush do any better in 2012?

[Foreground]

Going down in the polls faster than any president in history? From what I can tell, all the polls seem to indicate that his approval rating has been slowly rising since his election, which is amazing considering the state of the economy he inherited and low level scandals (yeah, tax cheating is low level, compared to Clinton's adultery, SEC prostituting themselves and a VP's war profiteering, the latter of two are just the tip of the Bush Iceberg) that are befalling his appointments.

Are you sure you're not reading a poll of GWB's approval ratings? Cause that ship done sank like it had hit, well, the tip of the Bush Iceberg, I suppose.

[myub40]

Headline is so misleading­....Huffpo­st do a better job next time.

[Cacaoatl]

There's already been an update to this story. Vivek Kundra is not a target of this investigation: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090312/pl_nm/us_obama_kundra_raid_5

[Adjective]

I've tried to post a comment to this post three times. Although critical, it was by no means abusive and it contained no ad hominem attacks or profane language. It was well within the character limit and spoke directly to this topic, and yet it somehow does not pass muster. Why? I've never been blocked from commenting - I've never said anything abusive, and though this is not the first time my comments have not appeared for reasons I don't grasp, it's very frustrating

Believe it or not, I spend time formulating and writing my comments. They may not be the most thoughtful or well composed but there is absolutely no reason why they should not be posted.

Is this because the moderation process is poorly managed? Are there specific words that automatically cause a rejection (I note some people use periods, spaces and dashes in the middle of certain words)? I'd really appreciate an official response from a HuffPost moderator.

Thanks.

[Foreground]

Honestly, it seems somewhat random; I have yet to figure out the filter they use. As a safety precaution, you might want to copy/paste your comment onto a text editor before you post, just in case; that's what I do to any comment I put any effort into.

[Greenguy25]

First, why would someone be hired to do this highly confidential work, that has obvious ties to the middle east. I know India is our friend, but come-on, you're just asking for criminal activity to take place at best, at worst a serious national security threat.

Wake up Washington,

http://www.mygreenscene.com

[linton]

Believe it or not there are a lot of foreigners working in the IT field. You have no clue as to who works or has access to your your confindential information once it goes into a database.

[ktal]

Whoah. You'd make the fact that a person knows people in South Asia (not the Middle East -- there's a difference you know... owait... you don't...) a disqualifier for a security job? He doesn't need to be associated with any *criminal* activity..­. no, he just has to have "ties" (like what? an aunt?). That's so... un-American. And, uh, racist. You might want to check yourself on that one -- after all, who knows what sort of ties *you* have...

[HWNA]

Are you kidding me?

Obama's transition team and now staff has really screwed him over.

[momof3inGA]

*sigh*

"Feds: Obama Appointee Not a Target "

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/03/12/1833992.aspx

I find it curious that only Huff Post, Drudge and Fox News.com still have this misleading story on their front page.

[plembo]

Please, this *is* a big deal. Mr. Kundra has been gone from his CTO position with the city for only around 5 minutes and one of the guys who reported to him gets busted in a major sting operation. Read the arrest warrant affidavit:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/pdf/warrantapp.pdf

It does look like the feds have gone out of their way to make it clear the President's guy wasn't involved in this.

Having said that, don't you think it's fair to question how firm a grasp he had on the operations of his department? Is it really out of bounds, in light of this, to question whether he's ready to take on the job of transforming federal IT?

The problem with the last crew we had to suffer with was that what little internal dissent there was got crushed and wrongdoing either covered up or actually encouraged.

One good sign is that apparently the FBI is still pursuing these kinds of corruption cases.

Another is the reaction to this news, either by Mr. Kundra on his own, or his boss. As of this afternoon AP is reporting the new federal CIO is on leave:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hMT9GSjeFeuiRWPCUKflpfkvfw3QD96SOREO0

*That* is a refreshing change from business as usual in Washington.

[lucidthoughts]

This is section is a little frightening. This firm had access to the DMV computer records. What if they were selling drivers licenes to some very unsavory types if you know what I mean. This could be a huge problem if something like this is uncovered in this investigation by the FBI. Nver mind the info they could have from Human resource records, SS's numbers etc.

"One contract involved providing computer support for the city's Department of Motor Vehicles. The company also was given a contract to upgrade the city's human resources computer records and sold virus detection software to the city."

[KQuarksSuperKollider]

Boy I hope the person how eventually buys my townhouse is not a criminal because I can see the Huf fPo headline now.

"Former KQuark Associate Arrested in His Townhouse for Blah Blah Blah"

[denny8844]

Come on you deniers Dont blame the messenger Your man Obama has just been horrible in associating himself with Tax Cheats and now this. Deal with all the corruption in the Dems Dont try to deflect the truth Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

[flamom4obama]

Since there are no truths in your post, there is nothing to deflect.

[rajoro]

Repug-ignorants are ready to dump on any democratic administration for even the smell of corruption from across the street.

Now where were they when the last administration and their mayberry nepotism and cronyism stole SCORES OF BILLIONS from the treasury in the form of no-bid contracts?

Where were these "patriots" when lobbyists were invited to write legislation which constituted massive "legalized" theft fom te treasury on the people's house floor as part of Boehner's "K STREET PROJECT"?

Where were these "concerned citizens" when their Repugnican congress was writing bills and inserting SCORES OF BILLIONS in untraceable pork barrel spending into a budget that their (self) righteous president never vetoed?

Where where they when the previous administration, who were supposed to watch out for the people's well being, promoting the general welfare through common sense oversight, while bankers and con-men where stealing us blind?

I'll tell you where they were... CHEERING! So now that we are left with an emergency you want to nit pick every item and blame everybody with a D next to their name. You are truly all OBTUSE!

[jdmccl]

Again with the no bid contracts? Get you own Soros to make a Halliburton so there is Competition. Only one company gets those contracts and your guy will put the cash in the same place because There Is No Other Choice. Stop crying for the last administration and grow up. Yeah the other side did the same with Bubba for about a month but its been 6 months get over it, its history and makes Keith stale.

[Virginia Plain]

Was this headline written by Rush Limburger, Glenn Beck, or Ann Coulter?

Which deliberate­ly-mislead­ing-wingnu­t wrote this headline?

[linton]

It was written by Lou Dobbs.

[Oldbuck]

I think this is going to prove what a lot of FBI work have proved in the last two years absolutely nothing there has been some crazy stuff going on in the last few years.

[citizen of the universe]

et tu HuffPo? Another Blame Obama segment. More to come tomorrow

[bronzy]

Hello! the headlines made it seem that "Vivek Kundra" was the one arrested and charged, quite a misleading headline, trying everything to make this administration look bad. *s uc ks*