US military contractor involved in visa fraud in Afghanistan gets four years prison sentence

A former US military contractor, identified as Orlando Clark, has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison after being found guilty of participating in a bribery scheme and visa fraud while overseeing millions of dollars in US-funded contracts in Afghanistan.

According to Stripes, Clark, along with another American company analyst, Todd Coleman, received around $400,000 in bribes from an Afghan company in exchange for securing almost a dozen federal reconstruction contracts at inflated values. They set up bank accounts for fake companies and filed invoices for a phony car exporting business to legitimize large wire transfers from Afghanistan.

Coleman was sentenced in February to two years and nine months in prison. Clark also admitted to accepting bribes in exchange for more than ten letters of recommendation for visas on behalf of Afghan nationals between 2015 and 2020.

This case is the latest in a series of investigations into contractor oversight in Afghanistan.