The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) on April 2 took into custody Ifediora Oli, a dual citizen of Nigeria and the United States, for allegedly conniving with two persons to defraud the District of Columbia public transit system after securing a Covid-19 testing kit contract worth more than half a million dollars.

Documents seen by Peoples Gazette revealed that Mr Oli, 41, hurriedly purchased plane tickets for himself, his partner and his daughter to travel to Nigeria as soon as he learnt he was under criminal investigation by the U.S. government for his dubious handling of a $659,000 contract to supply pandemic testing kits to the District of Columbia’s Department of Forensic Sciences (DFS).

FBI Special Agent Deborah Frye collected evidence for the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on March 28, which led to Mr Oli’s arrest at his Silver Spring, Maryland, residence on April 2.

Mr Oli, an employee for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who was illegally running his own side business, Highbury Global Group, Inc., allegedly plotted with his longtime friend identified as co-conspirator 1 — a staff of Metropolitan Transit Authority “WMATA”— and co-conspirator 2 (romantic partner of co-conspirator 1) to win and share the proceeds of a government contract deemed a violation of the American law, Ms Frye deposed in court.

Co-conspirator 2, also nicknamed BriBri, worked as a contract specialist at the Office of Contracting and Procurement (OCP), a U.S. agency responsible for awarding government contracts to bidding companies.

As a contract specialist at the OCP, co-conspirator 2 was taxed with selecting a company to supply the medical test kits to the DFS in 2021. But she not only allegedly influenced the selection of Mr Oli’s Highbury company for the bid, she also benefited from it, Ms Frye said.

Co-conspirator 2 allegedly used her position as a contract specialist to subtly pressure her colleagues into speeding up the contract award to Mr Oli.