Washington: Funds from a whopping $ 2.6 billion military transportation contract in Afghanistan was diverted to a murky network of subcontractors and into the hands of the Taliban, a year-long probe has found.
Roughly $ 600 million of the contract programme called Host Nation Trucking had been spent before authorities were alerted to the scandal; CNN quoted a source as saying, citing an internal report.
Only part of that money, however, is believed to have been diverted to "nefarious elements," the source added.
A Pentagon official said the full $ 2.16 billion contract covered the movement and transportation of 70 per cent of the material needed for US troops in Afghanistan.
Officials were first alerted to the possibility of a scandal in June 2010, after a Congressional inquiry prompted the creation of a joint task force to investigate potential criminal dealings surrounding US contracts.
The group gathered financial reports, prime and subcontract documents and other negotiations from between 2009 and 2010, prompting authorities to make major changes in their existing contract award and accounting system.
But much of the damage had already been done, the report said.
"There were indications dollars were flowing to criminals or to the enemy," said the Pentagon official, who did not want to be identified.
The official said it appears some of the payments were given for truckers to be assured of safe passage through insurgent areas of Afghanistan. As has happened in other instances, trucking contractors paid off local drivers who then turned around and paid local security forces, who in turn paid Taliban insurgents in their areas.
The year-long investigation uncovered "nefarious" conduct in at least four of eight trucking companies the US government uses to deliver food and supplies to soldiers and civilians in forward operating bases and other US installations across Afghanistan.
The internal document which was first reported by The Washington Post identified the firms as either exclusively Afghan or as joint ventures with international companies.
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