WASHINGTON, D.C. – An employee of a government contractor working in Iraq has been arrested on a charge of offering to bribe an Iraqi police official, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein of the District of Columbia announced today.
Faheem Mousa Salam, 27, of Livonia, Michigan, was arrested at Dulles International Airport Thursday upon returning from Iraq. He was charged with offering to bribe a foreign official under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Salam is a naturalized U.S. citizen employed by Titan Corporation, and had been living in Baghdad, Iraq.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the District of Columbia, Salam offered a senior Iraqi police official approximately $60,000 for the official’s assistance with facilitating the purchase by a police training organization of approximately 1,000 armored vests and a sophisticated map printer for approximately $1 million. The complaint alleges that Salam later made final arrangements with an undercover agent of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction – posing as a procurement officer for the multinational Civilian Police Assistance Training Team (CPATT) in Iraq – for the map printer and vests, along with a separate $28,000 to $35,000 “gift” to process the contracts.
The maximum sentence for a charge of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is five years in prison plus a $100,000 fine or twice the gross gain, whichever is greater.
A criminal complaint is merely and accusation and not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in a court of law.
The case is being prosecuted jointly by Fraud Section Deputy Chief Mark Mendelsohn and Trial Attorney Stacy Luck of the Criminal Division, Department of Justice, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys John Roth, Chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section, and Jonathan Rosen of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The case is being investigated by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
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