WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th October, 2020) A former US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official received a 7 year prison sentence for defrauding at least a dozen companies by posing as a CIA spy, the Justice Department said in a press release on Wednesday.
"A former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) public affairs officer was sentenced today to seven years in prison for defrauding at least a dozen companies of over $4.4 million by posing falsely as a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)," the release said.
Garrison Courtney, 44, the release added, approached numerous private firms, claiming the companies needed to hire and pay him to create what Courtney described as "commercial cover," to mask is affiliation with the CIA.
Courtney claimed that the companies would be reimbursed for his salary, sometimes by the award of lucrative contracts from the United States government in connection with the supposedly classified program.
Courtney also persuaded several government officials to vouch for his assumed CIA identity, and even gained a position working as a private contractor for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he attempted to steer $3.7 billion in government contracts to companies where he had been hired.
