A strike force composed of the FBI, U.S. attorneys and other federal law enforcement agencies have launched more than 24 grand jury investigations in the U.S. and abroad to counter bid-rigging, market allocation, price-fixing and other fraudulent schemes targeting federal contracts.
Members of the Procurement Collusion Strike Force have trained more than 8,000 procurement managers and officials at hundreds of agencies and companies in the past year to prevent bid-rigging and other crimes, FBI said in a May 12 news release.
Inspectors general from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), General Services Administration (GSA), U.S. Postal Service and other agencies also participated in the training to detect red flags associated with price-fixing and other criminal activities. The strike force also has trained over 400 data scientists in the past six months.
Richard Powers, deputy assistant attorney general and head of DOJ antitrust division’s criminal enforcement efforts said the strike force has prioritized the use of data analytics and relied on data from inspectors general and partnering agencies.
“We’re focused on and using the data available to us to identify potential collusion and fraud in the data to provide leads to help us spot problems earlier,” Powers said.
If you’re interested in federal data management efforts, then check out GovCon Wire’s Data Innovation Forum coming up on June 15. To register for this virtual forum and view other upcoming events, visit the GovConWire Events page.
