U.S. Central Command Air Force (CENTAF) is responsible for U.S. Air Force troops in the Middle East. After the September 11th attack in New York City and the Pentagon, our CENTAF budget skyrocketed from $230 million per year to more than $2 billion annually. We were investing in an ever-expanding infrastructure in the giant sandbox, and we were responsible for establishing necessary Air Force bases and adequately equipping them.

It is said that the Army builds portable, inexpensive camps because it is a mobile beast, consisting of a tent city with a strong perimeter and a few outhouses surrounded by barbed wire. Then, a few days or weeks later, all of that is pulled up and moved to a new location as the Army takes over more and more land in a mission to overtake the enemy.

The Air Force philosophy and mission are completely different than the other branches of service. We build more permanent bases with runways and even — dare I say it — indoor plumbing. We stay on those bases long term and launch our airplanes to do battle, only for them to return later for maintenance and refueling. Our camps come with a 1,000-foot runway capable of withstanding hundreds of hard landings daily. Because of that permanence, it costs more to build an Air Force base than an Army post. Thanks to our more traditional amenities, Air Force bases often play host to Army troops taking their rest and relaxation. In the end, because the Air Force spends more money establishing on-site facilities, we are a bigger target, not for just the enemy, but for unscrupulous contractors and vendors.

The process of choosing suppliers is one of attrition. The military makes potential vendors complete stacks of forms and conducts background checks to ensure we do not buy barbed wire from Iran or bread from terrorists. Then the companies submit bids for contracts, and many factors weigh into who is selected to provide particular services or goods. The Air Force also has a board that meets with contracting personnel, comptroller representatives and operations staff. The operations guys are there to ensure the soldiers' needs are met. The contracting and comptroller personnel are there to discuss past work the vendors have provided and weigh the bids based on cost, experience and quality provided. Often, the same big companies get many of our contracts because they understand our process, have good performance histories and can deliver on their promises. When we ask a company to provide electricity and water in the desert — 100 miles from the nearest living thing — we can't just hope it will deliver; we like to see a proven track record. If the vendor fails to deliver, it means fines for the company but, more important, it means U.S. troops are stuck in the middle of the desert without water or electricity — it means people can die. That is why acquisition officers and comptroller personnel in the military take their jobs very seriously. We are not working toward a profit, but to keep our people alive while ensuring victory for our commanders and our country.

As the Financial Comptroller for CENTAF, I had an immediate staff of 15 financial managers at Shaw Air Force Base, and another 85 or so spread throughout the sandbox from Qatar to Kuwait to Iraq. My staff and I oversaw about 50 bases through a network of local and international contracts. The Air Force uses a system of contracting that includes separation of the duties. Acquiring local contracts for goods and services that support the base, picking up and paying for those supplies and reconciling the accounting books are all separate functions performed by different employees. It's similar to the system that a bank or retail store in Smalltown, USA, would use to separate the responsibilities of daily operations. In addition to this division of tasks, the Air Force financial managers conduct audits and hold random checks of invoices and accounts to ensure that everything is copa-setic. Sometimes those checks smoke out parasites trying to take advantage of good ol' Uncle Sam. It was my job to stomp on those nasty little bugs.

It was a normal day in the Air Force; I started at 0530 with a run and was in the office by 0700. My team and I held a video teleconference (VTC) with Air Combat Command (ACC) in Langley, Virginia, that morning. ACC is CENTAF's big boss and controls our flow of money from the Pentagon. We discussed our upcoming operations and how we planned to tackle the myriad funding obstacles of the day. Overall, it was a constructive teleconference, and we all left it feeling ready to attack what the day had waiting for us. After the VTC, I circled the troops and we divided the day's workload based on everyone's respective talents.

I was preparing a briefing on funding issues in Kuwait for our commander, General Buzz Moseley (a legend in the Air Force). My deputy was preparing to receive 50 finance troops who were coming to town later that month. We had to train them to take over for 50 tired troops who were packing their bags and chomping at the bit to go home. The rest of my office was moving money where it needed to be and reviewing the activities of our agents to make sure they were keeping all their projects on track. I had my noncommissioned officer (NCO), Master Sergeant Mike Linville, doing a review of invoices from a vendor with which we had been having problems. The vendor was making too many food deliveries to the dining hall and we were having to pay rent on a dozen freezer trucks that were sitting outside in the heat, running all day and night to keep meat from spoiling. Mike was trying to figure out why the vendor kept bringing more and more meat, and how to make it stop. During one of his random checks, a few small amounts stood out on the spreadsheet of multi-thousand-dollar purchases of food and supplies. Mike came to me scratching his head and we took a look together. I used our internal accounting systems to dig deeper into the transactions and found the source of several of the small expenses: Barnyard Honeys and Barely Legal Teens. My years of experience and the knowledge I gleaned from dozens of CFE training sessions slapped me in the back of the head and told me something was wrong. After "$200,000 for barbed wire, $320,000 for concrete, and $400,000 for tents," the entry of "$400 for Big College Boobies" just didn't compute.

My first concern was to recover the money. I did some quick research on the Internet using the credit card details and found contact information for the electronic publishing company that maintained these Web sites. Next, I went down the hall and met with one of our CENTAF lawyers to discuss the legal implications of using a government credit card to buy pornography. We looked into the rights of the card holder (the U.S. government) and the rights of the Internet publisher. The lawyer and I discussed the theft of the card and the consequences faced by the thief. He provided me with legal references to use when talking to the company about refunding our money. Then he advised me that neither the FBI nor the courts would prosecute a case (even a slam dunk) over a $2,000 theft like the one we had discovered. The best we could hope for would be to identify the culprit, let him know that we had found him and discipline him.

The credit card used in the illicit purchases was assigned to an NCO who had returned home a few months ago. MSgt Linville called the NCO's senior enlisted advisor (or shirt, as we say in the Air Force) and discussed the situation. A shirt is usually a high-ranking enlisted officer assigned to a unit to act as a big brother to the young enlisted troops. He supports the troops, offers advice if they are having personal issues, helps the commander relate to his subordinates and generally has his thumb on the pulse of the unit. When we contacted the NCO's shirt, he said he knew his troops well and that the NCO who was assigned the credit card was a stand-up guy with a family and no history of problems. He didn't have DUIs or other criminal charges; he didn't have any money issues and had never been in trouble before. In fact, he and his wife had just had a baby, and he was busy passing out cigars and being a goofy new father. After clearing the NCO of suspicion, we turned our attention to our vendors. We decided that if the perpetrator wasn't a troop, the next likely suspect was an employee at one of our contractors. Who had access to the card number?

The illicit literature was purchased from a company called Porn-4-You. I contacted the provider to explain the theft and decided to go into the conversation politely, but with an air of authority. I found out that more than 1,000 new pornographic Web sites appeared on the Internet everyday and suspected that this one didn't want a Department of Defense (DoD) investigation into its screening process for customer credit cards or an Internal Revenue Service audit of their books. When I mentioned that I was a DoD agent and Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) calling from a government line, the tech was quick to put me through to a supervisor with some clout. He was very cooperative and provided me with the e-mail address and system password used to make the transactions on the NCO's credit card.

He also disclosed the customer's expense history, and he authorized a refund to the government credit card for all charges. He even offered me a free trial account with Barnyard Honeys (which I politely declined).

My next step was to contact the perpetrator, we'll call him Harry, using the information the Internet publisher gave me. I set up a dummy e-mail account in the name [email protected], intentionally mimicking the Web site from which Harry purchased his smut, Porn-4-You. I sent Harry an e-mail informing him that he was our lucky winner of a year of free literature. I included his Porn-4-You password and went over some of his past usage so he would think I was legitimate. I kept the e-mail short and happy and made sure he understood that I didn't need a credit card to offer him a free year of material. I gave him a choice of Biker Babes, Barnyard Honeys or College Co-Eds and told him he had 30 days to respond before I moved on to the next name on my list. I got an e-mail the next day saying he was very excited about his prize and would love to access Biker Babes for a year. I waited a few days (because I'm a busy smut peddler) and e-mailed him back that, because we did not require a credit card, we had to certify that he was over 18 years old. I asked Harry for his name and a physical address to which we could send his prize certificate and a card for him to certify his age.

I waited a week with no reply from Harry, and then resent the e-mail. Harry replied that he didn't have a permanent address for me (that would have been too easy) but would still like the prize. He offered another credit card. I told him that I'd talk to my supervisor about a waiver of the age certification since he had a history with our company. However, by that point I already had what I needed — his computer location. I pulled the Internet protocol (IP) address from the e-mails he sent to me and ran it through the IP lookup service at www.whatismyip.com. I discovered that Harry was in Saudi Arabia, at his work computer.

The computer Harry used to access and purchase pornographic material with a U.S. credit card belonged to America Happy Company in Saudi Arabia, one of our regular vendors. I had contact information for the sales department, which I used to reach the loss prevention department and notify it of the theft. I informed the company's management that subsequent problems would result in its removal from the federal trade list of companies cleared to conduct business with the U.S. government. They weren't too happy to learn that. This would mean certain death for their enterprise and inspired them to track down their "inside man" to prevent future occurrences. I gave them Harry's IP address and his contact information that I received from the Porn-4-You manager. It took less than a day for them to call me back and tell me they had fired Harry and had a letter of apology to the U.S. Air Force in the mail. They even offered me free ketchup!

Although I could not bring charges against Harry, because the amount of the fraud was not large enough to interest prosecutors, I was satisfied with the outcome of the case. America Happy Company had been a trusted contractor with a proven track record, and it was to everyone's benefit to retain our professional relationship. Management took the proper steps to remove Harry from the company and implemented control procedures to prevent future occurrences.

Lt Col Robert J. Blair, CFE, CGFM, is the branch chief for financial plans and policy under General David Petraeus at U.S. Central Command. He is the senior Air Force representative for funding support of $30 billion for U.S. and coalition efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.