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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| San Diego sales guru kills himself amid $3M FBI probe after helping US security firm favored by Biden administration land vital $600million contract to stop fentanyl and weapons flooding across the border |
| 2023-11-18 |
| [Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A sales guru who helped a US security firm land a vital $600million contract to stop fentanyl and weapons flooding across the border has killed himself while awaiting trial in a $3million FBI probe into embezzlement claims while at his previous job. George Walther-Meade, 50, took his own life in San Diego, California, on November 6, the city's medical examiner confirmed to DailyMail.com. He had been arrested in February this year over allegations he had defrauded a previous employer. But he went onto help rival firm Rapiscan secure a lucrative deal to provide scanning equipment at the US-Mexico border. The bid was heavily backed by the Biden administration. Yet questions were raised over the contract after it was revealed Rapiscan had been hit with a hefty fine for failing to fulfil its obligations under a previous border contract in Mexico. A spokesman for the Committee on Homeland Security told DailyMail.com in July that the revelations were 'troubling' in the midst of 'an unprecedented crisis raging at the Southwest border'. Walther-Meade had pled not guilty to the charges against him, but co-defendant, Juan Gonzalez Ruiz, recently pled guilty to the conspiracy. The case was not related to the Rapiscan contract. When the Mexican government expressed interest in installing modern scanning equipment on its border, US officials immediately presented Rapiscan as one of its three preferred contractors. In May 2022, the US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar even threatened to withhold US cooperation with Mexico unless it awarded the tender to Rapiscan or one of two other US companies, when it appeared officials were leaning towards a Chinese bidder, according to leaked documents obtained by The Washington Post. To bolster its bid, Rapiscan hired Walther-Meade in December 2021 because of 'his experience in the contracting process with the Mexican government', according to local media. But the American had been sacked by rival firm Leidos just three weeks earlier after the firm accused him of 'providing benefits to government leaders or agents of Mexico' to land lucrative contracts, according to court records uncovered by DailyMail.com. The allegations were made public after Walther-Meade sued Leidos for wrongful dismissal and his complaint claimed this was one of the false accusations made by his former employer. Leidos then countersued their former vice president for embezzlement. Despite the clouds gathering over Rapsican's new hire, Walther-Meade's experience in the Latin American market seemingly paid off and on March 17 this year, the California-based firm won the $600million contract to install modern scanning equipment on its border. The news came as great relief to Rapiscan, who had fired Walther-Meade just a week earlier following his arrest by the FBI in February. The senior executive had been indicted by a federal grand jury in San Diego over allegations he and a co-conspirator embezzled $3million from Leidos. There was no mention of the bribery accusations that allegedly prompted Leidos to fire him, but the indictment laid in the Southern District of California accused Walther-Meade of engaging a fake vendor to bill the firm for work that 'was never performed' before the pair used the 'fraudulently obtained' funds 'for their own personal use and benefit'. When Rapiscan won the contact, Ambassador Salazar expressed his delight at the deal in a statement, in which he said the US was 'glad' Mexico had awarded the contract to Rapiscan, which would 'deepen our efforts to fight the trafficking of drugs, weapons and people'. Rapiscan's previous $120million contract with the Mexican government expired in 2020 - a year when around 20,000 firearms were seized in Mexico, according to UN data. It is estimated around 200,000 firearms are smuggled across the US-Mexico border every year. Rapiscan was responsible for a large portion of the scanning equipment at this crucial entry point. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |