It's been billed as the "largest domestic bribery and bid-rigging scheme in the history of federal contracting cases.
Specifically, over a five-year period, more than $30 million was illegally siphoned from federal coffers by a ring of crooked public officials and government contractors in the D.C. area operating via bribes, kickbacks, and other dirty dealings.
A big fix, especially in lean budget times. The plot was thickening, too a billion-dollar government contract was about to be steered illegally into favored hands in exchange for sizeable payments under the table
But ultimately the hammer fell, and fell hard, following a massive, multi-year investigation by the FBI and its partners called Five Aces (a reference to cheating by stacking the deck) that came to light in October 2011 after the first arrests. A total of 15 federal employees and contractor-plus one company, Nova Datacom have since pled guilty. That includes the mastermind of the conspiracy, Kerry Khan, who just last week was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison.