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Tactical Products Group Executives Indicted by Department of Justice for Providing Faulty Armor, Swapping Tags

Last week, Tactical Products Group, LLC (TPG) CEO Dan Thomas Lounsbury, Jr and Vice President for Sales and Federal Contracting Andres Lopez-Munoz, were in Federal Court in the Eastern District of Virginia due to charges of conspiracy to defraud the government with respect to claims and wire fraud. Lounsbury is additionally charged with false, fictitious, or fraudulent claims.

TPG is a Florida-based manufacturer and re-seller of various products to military, law enforcement, and private security clients. According to the United States Attorney’s Office, in 2012, TPG was selected as a sub-contractor on a contract to provide certain goods, including ten sets of hard body armor plates, to the United States government. The government had requested a specific type of plate, and Lounsbury and Lopez-Munoz both knew that no substitutions were allowed. Furthermore, Lounsbury and Lopez-Munoz both knew that these plates would be used to protect government personnel. The consequence of a failure of body armor is death or serious bodily injury. Nevertheless, Lounsbury and Lopez-Munoz worked together to procure cheaper substitute plates, and then to put fraudulent labels on these substitute plates falsely stating that they were the type of plates that the government had required. Some of these cheaper substitute plates were far outside their warranty period, and were not as protective as the false labels claimed.

The supplied plates were provided to Triple Canopy to fulfill a contract. Reportedly, the plates supplied were known to delaminate. Furthermore, four of the 10 plates supplied were six years out of warranty. Amazingly, the value of the contract is said to be just $3,500.

If convicted, they face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

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12 Responses to “Tactical Products Group Executives Indicted by Department of Justice for Providing Faulty Armor, Swapping Tags”

  1. SShink says:

    Public flogging?

  2. WJ says:

    Just wow… there’s gotta be more to this than $3500 armor order shenanigans.

    • SSD says:

      I’m trying to figure out who they pissed off.

    • Mick says:

      I don’t know that I’d read too far into the “max of 20 years” thing… at least not yet. Federal sentencing guidelines are notoriously labyrinthine and bizarre.
      $3500 seems small fry for federal prosecutors, but yes, to SSD’s point, somewhere in the chain someone took great moral offense and probably impressed on a prosecutor the need to push the case.

  3. Alpha2 says:

    For a bit over 3 grand you are going to put people’s lives in danger…they deserve every bit of twenty years.

  4. greentick says:

    Didn’t Ceradyne’s plates that they delivered to USSOCOM all delaminate as well?

  5. Kirk says:

    Legend has it that a Japanese samurai was entitled to return a broken sword to the swordsmith by forcibly inserting it up the smith’s rectal cavity.

    I’m not saying that this is the solution, here, but… It does seem like a valid object lesson for those who seek to defraud soldiers in this manner.

  6. Alex says:

    All this for $3,500?

    Dirt bags

  7. Rick says:

    To chime in, its not about the money. To re lable body armor no mater the cost of the order is below low. Seriously thats like cutting brake lines on a car and then knowingly putting people in it!!!

  8. Dave says:

    Perhaps it’s not because of what they did but because the government is looking for money. Next year by my back of the envelop/napkin calculations, the interest on our national debt will exceed the DOD budget. It will be interesting to see how much the Government will accept in cash in return for their freedom.

    • SSD says:

      The government probably spent over $3500 in the first week investigating this.

      The US government is horrible in calculating costs for the work it does.