Tijani Ahmed Saani, False Tax Returns, Washington 2008

WASHINGTON – A former U.S. Department of Defense employee has been brought to justice for his involvement in a tax evasion scheme.

Tijani Ahmed Saani, a 53-year-old former resident of Kuwait City, Kuwait, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to filing false tax returns for tax years 2003 through 2007, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and Assistant Attorney General Christine A. Varney of the Antitrust Division.

Saani, who worked as a contracting officer in Kuwait from 1994 until his arrest in May 2008, admitted to filing false tax returns and failing to properly report income from overseas bank accounts, including those in the United States and the Jersey Channel Islands.

The indictment, filed September 19, 2008, charged Saani with five counts of filing false tax returns, including failing to disclose his interest in or authority over multiple foreign bank accounts, failing to report interest earned from those bank accounts, and failing to report other additional income on his tax returns for tax years 2003 through 2007.

Saani faces up to three years in prison and a fine of $100,000 for each of the five charged counts to which he pleaded guilty. His sentencing has been scheduled for October 8, 2009.

The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Kathryn H. Albrecht, Richard B. Evans, and Ann C. Brickley of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, as well as Trial Attorneys Mark W. Pletcher, Emily W. Allen, and Ryan Danks of the Antitrust Division’s National Criminal Enforcement Section.

Anyone with information concerning bid rigging, bribery, or other criminal conduct regarding DOD contracts is urged to call the Defense Criminal Investigative Service at 800-424-9098 or hotline@dodig.mil, the Army Criminal Investigation Division at www.cid.army.mil, or the FBI at 800-225-5324.

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