Iraq Contracting Bribes: $9.6 Million Flowed Like WaterIf Major John Cockerham had only known Thomas Kontogiannis, maybe the whole sordid story would have turned out differently.
Cockerham was an Army contracting officer in Kuwait who, a criminal complaint alleges, is at the center of the largest corruption case yet to emerge from the Iraq war. It’s a picaresque story involving crooked Kuwaiti and Emirati businessmen with codenames like “Mr. and Mrs. Pastry.” In 2004 and 2005, according to the complaint, Cockerham, his wife and his sister, took $9.6 million in bribes, kept in safe-deposit boxes in a number of Persian-Gulf cities, in exchange for contracts for things like drinking water.
According to the Washington Post, the Cockerham family could be formally indicted as early as today. While investigators have only been able to locate $415,000 of the nearly $10 million the money that the Cockerhams allegedly took from their business partners, they face charges for money-laundering, bribery and conspiracy.
The story is both absurd and mundane. From the Post:
According to court documents, the owner of Trans Orient General Trading in Kuwait allegedly offered Cockerham a bribe for a lucrative contract to supply bottled water. Prosecutors allege that the owner of Trans Orient and another man linked to the company met Cockerham in June in a parking lot of the Kuwaiti military base where he worked. The two men allegedly showed him a briefcase containing $300,000 cash and said it was a “good-faith” payment, with more to follow. Cockerham did not take the cash, but authorities say it was later deposited in a bank account to which Cockerham had access.
A short time later, one of the men approached Cockerham, saying he knew how he could “make some more money” with a different vendor, Green Valley Co. of Kuwait. This was followed by another alleged parking-lot meeting, in which court documents say one of the men showed Cockerham a briefcase with $300,000 in cash. Again, Cockerham didn’t take the money but was allegedly told by the man that it would be placed in a U.S. bank account for him.
On Oct. 18, 2004, Cockerham signed a contract with Green Valley.
What is it with water contracts and corruption? Recall that ADCS chief Brent Wilkes got his buddy, then-CIA procurement chief Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, to secure for him a deal worth $1.7 million to supply CIA operatives in Iraq with bottled water. All it took was a Wilkes-paid fishing trip to Scotland for Foggo to assure Wilkes, “I’ll work this water thing.”
Anyway, back to the Cockerhams. Shortly after John’s initial round of bribes, Cockerham allegedly got his wife Melissa and his Kuwait-based sister, Carolyn Blake, to act as his mules. On instructions from John — Melissa allegedly told investigators that she didn’t want to ask “too many questions,” the two would travel to Kuwait City and Dubai, where they would receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from would-be contractors, and stash it in safe-deposit boxes that the government has yet been unable to find. (Members of the family dispute where exactly the different payments are located.) Suspicious Army investigators might not have been able to make a case — had John not been so good with a balance sheet.
At some point, according to the affidavit, John Cockerham started keeping a handwritten ledger of money given to him or to other people for him. Blake also kept a ledger of the $3.1 million she allegedly collected on her brother’s behalf. Blake apparently used a code to identify people who paid her, writing amounts next to a variety of assumed names — for example, Mr. & Mrs. Pastry: $340,000.
Blake’s ledger, which has been seized by government authorities, also shows she took her cuts. One note read: “Carolyn’s 10 %.”
It’s unclear how investigators learned of the bribery scheme. But in December, over a year after the Cockerhams returned to San Antonio, agents raided their home and found the ledgers. John and Melissa apparently came clean to investigators about most of the scheme — but prosecutors intend to produce evidence from just last month indicating that John sent e-mails to wife and sister as to how to cover up illicit transactions that the government likely didn’t know about.
Just a guess, but they probably didn’t advise Melissa and Carolyn to use a cousin’s company to pay the mortgage on a corrupt congressman’s house. Too bad: while John, Melissa and Tommy K are all considered flight risks, only the Cockerhams were denied bail. Maybe they should consider snitching.
