September 6, 2018

The owner of New Jersey-based defense contracting firm, Bright Machinery Manufacturing Group Inc (BMM), has been charged with defrauding the Department of Defense and violating the Arms Export Control Act. From 2010 to 2015, Ferdi Gul—currently at large in Turkey—submitted bids and was awarded 346 contracts worth $7 million to manufacture military parts within the U.S., including torpedoes, firearms, and mine clearance systems. Instead, Gul had the parts made in Turkey, submitted false quality control paperwork, and sent the parts back to the U.S. to DoD customers. In subsequent testing by the DoD, some of the parts were shown to be essentially unusable. If found and convicted, Gul could be imprisoned for a maximum of 160 years and be ordered to pay up to $3.5 million. USAO NJ

Tagged in: Defense Contract Fraud, Government Procurement Fraud, Trade Agreements,