Criminal Cases

Recent Criminal Cases

• Subject: Naim Ismail

  Action: Sentencing

  Investigative Activity: Investment Firm Vice President Sentenced for Running Multimillion-Dollar Ponzi Scheme

  On July 27, 2022, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Naim Ismail was sentenced to 70 months of incarceration with credit for time served domestically. Credit was not granted for time served while detained in the United Arab Emirates. Additionally, Ismail was ordered to pay a forfeiture to his victims in the amount of $10.2 million.

  Ismail participated in various investment schemes that defrauded victims of over $15 million. From February 2007 through July 2016, he fraudulently induced individual and corporate victims—including the New York-based subsidiary of an Afghanistan-based bank—to loan large sums of money to entities operated by Ismail and others. Ismail did so by claiming that these funds would be used in an investment strategy and in several real estate development projects. He offered investors a generous fixed annual rate of return and promised to return the investors’ principal on a specified timeline. Ismail and his companies did not invest these funds as promised, nor did he repay many of his victims. Instead, he used investor funds to pay the so-called interest payments due to earlier investors in the scheme, as well as for his own personal expenses and investments.

  SIGAR and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) jointly conducted the investigation.

• Subject: Zachary A. Friedman

  Action: Guilty Plea

  Investigative Activity: Former U.S. Defense Contractor Executive Pleads Guilty to Charges of Tax Evasion

  On August 25, 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Zachary A. Friedman pleaded guilty to tax evasion. A criminal information was filed against Friedman on August 1, 2022.

  Friedman worked in the United Arab Emirates as a senior executive for a US Defense Contractor, a U.S. Department of Defense fuel supply contractor based in Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Dubai. From 2013 until 2015, Friedman evaded taxes he owed to the IRS by providing false information to his tax preparer, thereby underreporting the income he earned for each of the three years. In total, Friedman concealed approximately $530,000 of income, causing a tax loss to the U.S. government of more than $207,000.

  Friedman is the fourth defendant associated with the US Defense Contractor to plead guilty. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a period of supervised release, and monetary penalties. SIGAR initiated the investigation at the request of the Department of Justice Tax Division and worked concurrently with the IRS-CI International Tax and Financial Crimes Group. The Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement (J5)— comprising the taxing authorities of Australia, Canada, Netherlands, United Kingdom, and the United States—assisted.

• Subject: Paul Daigle, Keith Woolford

  Action: Sentencings

  Investigative Activity: Two Former Company Executive Officers Sentenced for Fraud

  On July 29, 2022, in the Northern District of Alabama, Paul Daigle was sentenced to three years of probation with six months of home confinement and was ordered to pay $52,968 in restitution. On July 29, 2022, Daigle’s co-conspirator, Keith Woolford, was also sentenced to three years’ probation with six months’ home confinement and was ordered to pay $52,968 in restitution.

  Daigle and Woolford were executives for AAL USA, a Department of Defense subcontractor engaged in the repair and maintenance of aircraft in Afghanistan under contracts issued from Red Stone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. Chief Executive Officer Daigle and Chief Financial Officer Woolford perpetrated a scheme to fill contract labor positions with employees who did not meet the education requirements, and in some cases, with employees who were not actually assigned work on the contract. As part of the fraud, they instructed employees to obtain fake college degrees from an online diploma mill in order to satisfy the requirements of the labor categories contained in the statement of work for a U.S. government contract. As a result of the scheme, false invoices were created and passed to the prime contractor and then on to the U.S. government for payment.

  The investigation was conducted by SIGAR, Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID)-Major Procurement Fraud Unit.

• Subject: Bernard Barrington

  Action: Forfeiture

  Investigative Activity: Former U.S. Military Member Forfeits $52,000 to U.S. Government

  On September 9, 2022, former U.S. Army Warrant Officer Barrington Bernard and his counsel signed a SIGAR letter indicating Bernard’s intent to forfeit $52,000 to the U.S. government via the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS).

  Bernard received bribe payments in the amount of $52,000 from an Afghan trucking company from 2007 to 2009, while he was assigned to Bagram Air Force Base, Afghanistan. A joint investigation was initiated by SIGAR and the U.S. Army CID after a witness reported allegations of bribery involving Bernard. In a subsequent interview, Bernard admitted to having received approximately $52,000 in bribe money and he voluntarily agreed to forfeit the money as allowed by law and regulation.

  SIGAR and CID referred the matter to the DFAS to facilitate disposal of the funds to the U.S. Treasury.

• Subject: Mustafa Neghat, Abdul A. Qurashi

  Action: Sentencings

  Investigative Activity: Former Employees of U.S. Government Contractor Sentenced for Fraud Scheme

  On July 20, 2022, in U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, Mustafa Neghat was sentenced to 12 months of supervised probation after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States.

  On September 22, 2022, in the U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, Abdul A. Qurashi was sentenced to 12 months of unsupervised probation after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States.

  Neghat and Qurashi were employed by a U.S. government contractor to recruit candidates for positions as language interpreters working with the U.S. military. They circumvented procedures designed to ensure candidates met minimum proficiency standards, which resulted in unqualified language interpreters being hired and later deployed alongside U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan. To carry out this scheme, they conspired with others to commit wire fraud and major fraud against the United States. Both obtained financial bonuses from their employer based on the number of candidates hired through their efforts.

  To date, five co-conspirators have pleaded guilty as a result of the SIGAR-led investigation.