Triple Canopy: Al Asad Marksmanship Scorecards

In the Triple Canopy guard settlement, the company agreed to pay $2.6 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations of billing for unqualified security guards on a $10 million contract in Iraq. The alleged contradiction was one a person at the firing range could see: guards failed the test, while their personnel files showed passing scores. A former company medic brought the whistleblower case behind the settlement.

The Justice Department announced the civil resolution on October 16, 2017. The case concerned security services at Al Asad Airbase, then Iraq’s second-largest air base, where the contract required guards capable of using their assigned weapons safely and accurately. For an insider who knows the training records or the people behind the invoices, this case connects a qualification on paper to the service taxpayers bought.

What the Al Asad Security Contract Required

Triple Canopy’s Al Asad contract required security guards to pass Army firearms-proficiency tests on their AK-47 rifles and other weapons, with scorecards kept for government review. The government’s suit announcement described a one-year contract awarded in June 2009 by the Joint Contracting Command in Iraq/Afghanistan. The work included protecting access to the base, and the government alleged that Triple Canopy billed for hundreds of guards who could not meet the firearms standard.

The former employee’s complaint described the requirement in practical terms. Guards had to qualify annually with their issued weapons, scoring at least 23 out of 40 from the 25-meter line. The complaint also described what the company was supposed to do when someone could not meet the contract’s requirements:

That replacement obligation gives the alleged false scorecards their point. According to the complaint, managers arranged paperwork showing that guards had qualified despite failed tests. We see the absurdity: guards who allegedly could not load their weapons became qualified. On paper.

What the Former Employee Saw

The whistleblower worked as a medic at Al Asad and described both the failed tests and the records created afterward. His original complaint alleged that American supervisors discovered soon after the guards arrived that they could not load or unload their weapons, despite personnel files recording earlier qualifications in Uganda. It also alleged that range testing exposed failures to meet the Army’s minimum shooting standard.

The complaint traced the paperwork through several roles. A supervisor allegedly directed an interim deputy site manager to certify false firing scorecards, which stayed in the company’s files. Later, a site manager allegedly told the medic and an acting deputy site manager to create a spreadsheet of purported qualification scores for possible Defense Contract Management Agency inspection and for tracking annual requalification.

After another failed range session, the medic alleged, he handed over blank qualification sheets and explained why they were blank. He then reported the qualification failures and alleged falsification to company officials in Virginia.

On returning to Al Asad, he alleged, a site manager told him to fill the sheets with specified passing scores for male and female guards. The medic said he followed those instructions, and another site manager signed the sheets and dated them to show qualification in the following month. The complaint describes someone inside the creation of the records, able to explain where the entries came from.

The government’s own allegations reached headquarters as well. In its suit announcement, the Justice Department alleged that Triple Canopy continued billing after high-level company officials had been alerted and used false qualification records in an effort to win another year of Al Asad work. The alleged paperwork therefore served both the current bill and the pursuit of the next contract.

How the Scorecards Connected to Government Payments

The scorecards supported the qualification behind the billed service. In the Fourth Circuit’s account of the allegations, Triple Canopy submitted monthly invoices listing the guards in service, at a rate of $1,100 per guard per month. A government contracting officer representative accepted the services using a Material Inspection and Receiving Report, while the qualification scorecards remained in personnel files.

That separation matters to an insider. The invoice counted people, the personnel file purported to show their qualifications, and the government representative recorded acceptance of the service. Reading the bill alone would not reveal the alleged source of the passing scores. The link to government money ran through records with different jobs.

The Fourth Circuit revived the government’s claims in 2015. Its reasoning addressed why the alleged concealment mattered to payment: a government customer buying base security would care whether the guards could use their weapons, and false scorecards could make the invoices appear supported if personnel files were checked.

The Whistleblower Case Behind the Settlement

A former employee started the qui tam case in 2011, and the government joined in June 2012. The settlement announcement credited a coordinated effort by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Army Criminal Investigation Command.

The settlement announcement also said the whistleblower would receive a share of this settlement. A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers. We connect a failed qualification to the government charge, building the case around what the test showed and what the file said.

What Proof Do You Need as a Whistleblower?

For an allegation like this one, the useful evidence connects the contract requirement, actual test performance, recorded score and government bill. The Al Asad complaint makes that connection tangible: who was at the range, what happened there, who directed the entries and what the personnel files later showed. The billing and acceptance records complete the account of what the government paid for.

Different jobs provide different views of that account. A trainer or range supervisor may know the performance, a personnel employee may know the qualification records, and a billing employee may know which guards appeared on an invoice. We work with the insider to connect that knowledge to the same service and payment period, including what management knew when billing continued.

Government oversight has its own staffing constraints. Transparency International Defence and Security’s 2022 report Hidden Costs: US Private Military and Security Companies and the Risks of Corruption and Conflict found that undertraining and understaffing hindered agencies’ ability to assess corruption risks and hold contractors accountable. Against that broader problem, the Al Asad allegation shows the value of a person who can explain how a supposedly supporting record was actually made. We look at the test and the creation of the scorecard together.

The Qualification Behind the Charge

The same payment problem appears in other cases involving underqualified labor on defense contracts: the government buys a service with a specified qualification, and the contractor allegedly bills for people who lack it. The record carrying that representation can be a resume, a labor category or a test score.

Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems agreed to a $27.5 million settlement over allegations that it billed underqualified employees at rates for more qualified staff on Army task orders supporting Iraq and Afghanistan. The qualification in Triple Canopy’s case was tested firearms proficiency. In both cases, the alleged gap sat between the people supplied and the service represented on the government’s bill.

You Know Where the Scores Came From

If you saw managers dictate passing scores or keep billing after a required test was failed, talk with our whistleblower experts about the records you know. We develop the case around your account of the work and the money, with defense contractor whistleblower lawyers who understand qualification fraud. We stay with you through the case, from understanding the alleged falsification to pursuing the government’s recovery.