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Company accused of faking thousands of government background checks

A company contracted to perform background checks for the U.S. government is now accused of falsifying hundreds of thousands of those reports.
USIS logo

(CNN) — U.S. prosecutors have filed charges against a security company, accusing it of faking completed background checks to bilk the government of millions of dollars.

U.S. Investigations Services used a computer program to “flush” or “dump” background checks — labeling them as completed, when in fact they had not carried out a quality review as required by the government contract, prosecutors allege in a complaint.

The fraudulent behavior involved at least 665,000 background investigations — about 40% of the total number the company conducted, prosecutors allege.

The company received nearly $12 million in bonus payments from 2008 through 2010, which would not have been given if the U.S. Office of Personnel Management had known of USIS’s actions, the complaint says.

USIS is charged with three counts: false or fraudulent claims; false statements, and breach of contract.

Other filings — including by the defense — remain sealed.

Representatives for USIS could not be reached immediately Thursday morning.

On its website, USIS describes itself as “the leading industry provider of background investigations to the federal government, with a long-standing reputation for service, quality and timeliness.”

CNN’s Josh Levs, Jonathan Helman, and Evan Perez contributed to this report.

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