The Three Million Dollar Ribbon

Overview

Two conmen used lies & falsified documents to convince the State of Tennessee to give them a $3,000,000 economic development grant to create 1,000 jobs by purchasing & rehabilitating a vacant factory in rural Tennessee. Instead, they spent most of the money on an extravagant lifestyle & invested over $1M in a scheme to defraud the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) out of over $30,000,000 pursuant to a contract to provide the tarps for areas such as Puerto Rico, affected by hurricanes. This session provides a detailed case study of how the investigators accumulated, organized & analyzed hundreds of documents, identified the falsifications & misrepresentations, conducted multiple interviews & ultimately convicted the conmen. This case study provides multiple takeaways for detecting & investigating grant fraud, which is especially relevant in light of the numerous federal stimulus programs in recent years.