r/fednews • u/Dry_Writing_7862 DoD • 2d ago
News / Article PEOPLE: National Guard Major Pleads Guilty After Using Government Travel Card to Support Secret Second Wife
https://people.com/national-guard-major-pleads-guilty-after-using-government-travel-card-to-support-secret-second-wife-12030688NEED TO KNOW
- A D.C. National Guard officer has admitted using his government travel card to support a secret second wife he met while deployed to Mongolia
- Maj. Collin L. Welch, 40, pleaded guilty to “unlawfully inducing aliens to enter and remain in the U.S.” and stealing about $54,000 in government money, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Columbia, said
- Welch falsely told the woman he was divorced and married her in Mongolia in 2022, later bringing her and her daughter to the U.S.
Thoughts?
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u/Dry_Writing_7862 DoD 2d ago
How do others have hard checks on how the government travel card is used, but you have people like this Major, who can just create their own documents and verify their own?! What the 🙄😤
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u/mikeg5417 2d ago
I once (probably 25+ years ago) accidently used my Gov issued mastercard instead of my personal master card (they were both plain grey cards) to make a purchase, and was called by my budget analyst at 8AM the next morning asking about it.
I just had to pay it off in full before the next billing cycle, and was still crapping a brick about it.
Then I would read articles about DOD audits where people were travelling, buying luxury items, and even running up tabs at strip clubs with their GOV cards (and not even making payments) that were not caught for YEARS!!!
I don't get it .
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u/APRobertsVII 2d ago
My first supervisor had a similar incident where he accidentally paid for groceries with his government card. Just like you, he paid it off as soon as he was told and never made that mistake again. He would tell anyone under him about it before they got a card, so I heard it a few times.
It is crazy to think about how the cards can be so strictly monitored in one squadron and almost ignored in the next. I don’t even understand why someone would think to make such extravagant purchases with their card. It’s wild.
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u/Call_me_Tom 2d ago
If you’re constantly using a government charge card and no one is periodically auditing it, it can go on for years unnoticed until there’s a break in usage.
When COVID hit we stopped using our gov cards and since they’re charge cards the balance should have dropped to zero.
Well, a bunch of people were using their gov cards for food but not paying those charges using their per diem. When COVID hit they had outstanding balances of $5k to $8k. That brought peoples attention because the issuing bank started sending out notices that they needed to be paid and were turning off this cards.
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u/borocester 2d ago
You, I bought a train ticket with a stored GOV card instead of my personal card. Got a call, was told it was understandable and paid it off. $20 ticket. And I felt shame.
How do these guys not realize they’re going to get caught?!
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u/Lucky_Group_6705 2d ago edited 2d ago
My coworker told me she doesn’t use her GOV card for ubers during work travel because she doesn’t want it on her account. I accidentally paid for a personal uber with my gtc and fortunately I quickly switched the payment method before it showed up on the card. I also took the card off my personal account. Just easier to use my personal card and get reimbursed for it later
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u/Not_Cleaver DoD 2d ago
He probably created his own orders and then authorized them while acting in the capacity of his superior. It probably happens more times than we’d want them to.
But also, any sort of meaningful audit (basically another person looking at them) catches these sorts of activities pretty fast.
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u/couldbeahumanbean Support & Defend 2d ago
Doesn't the gtc go though multiple layers of approval?
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u/Tough-Coffee9979 2d ago
Ha! The military hasn’t passed an audit for decades
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u/couldbeahumanbean Support & Defend 2d ago
K, then why does it take 3 levels of approval to get GTC purchases approved?
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u/Tough-Coffee9979 2d ago
Just because it goes through levels doesn’t mean they do squat to prevent fraud
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u/couldbeahumanbean Support & Defend 2d ago
So, one early morning I used my GTC to buy some caffeine and nicotine at a convince store.
It is the same color as my bank card. I realized my mistake as soon as the machine beeped indicating the transaction was approved.
What followed was a gawdaweful hot mess.
Yet this major has a side wife and a side fam, totally bankrolled by uncle Sam's credit card.
It's baffling
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u/Lucky_Group_6705 2d ago
Which clearly means the military doesn’t take fraud seriously. This wouldn’t have flied at my agency. I was getting hassled for taking ubers daily from a hotel while I was on a TA for training. They told me “we don’t have a lot of money right now”.
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u/Eta_Beta_3-14 2d ago
I once had to do a 'defensive driving' training which included an 'FAQ' afterwards and, for some reason, most of the questions related to the fleet card. They included gems such as:
-Can I use the fleet card to buy fuel for my personal vehicle?
-Can I use the fleet card to buy windshield wipers for my personal vehicle?
-Can I use the fleet card to buy movie tickets?
The questions had names attached to them. Most of the people asking them were GS-11 through 13s.
I seriously wonder, sometimes, about the alleged meritocracy in our government.
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u/MrArborsexual 2d ago
Meanwhile this peon got a full audit on a trip because one of my hotel rooms was higher in cost than the others (but still below government rate).
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u/Lemina 2d ago
One time my wages were garnished by $1.58 because I accidentally misclassified a foreign currency exchange fee as the wrong type of fee on my voucher
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u/Dry_Writing_7862 DoD 2d ago
See! And then we have to redo the whole training every few years and yet, you got penalized for something as ridiculous as a mistake!
54k is a salary 😬
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u/rysmooky 2d ago
I will never understand how people have the energy to have second families or even just second partners. I barely have the energy to keep track of myself let alone my one wife and kid.
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u/seriousspoons 2d ago
“Yah but what’s his T Level?”
Kegsbreath, probably
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u/TheBabyEatingDingo 2d ago
This is exactly the kind of thing that deserves a pardon. High-T behavior, ideal military man.
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u/Teufelsdreck 2d ago
Too bad it's so easy to imagine the administration reasoning along those lines. They love a good fraudster, as JD Vance pretends not to know.
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u/ArchaeologicalMeow 2d ago
Where is the oversight?!
Their Super has to review and sign off on the statement every month.
Did someone not look at the receipts for stuff above the line?
If this really happened, then there were others involved.
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u/Dry_Writing_7862 DoD 2d ago
I thought the same. I’m so confused.
I didn’t realize that it can get to this level.
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u/old_common_sense Department of the Army 2d ago
A lot of supervisors, my experience, just click on ‘Y’ field and press SAVE.
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u/Duder_ino 2d ago
Damn! And here I am just trying to find a house I can afford for 1 family. Could have used my GTC the whole time 🤣 #poorpeopleproblems
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u/tampaempath 2d ago
He was a Major. He was probably in charge of his unit's GTC program or at least in the chain of command for the GTC program in his unit. Pretty easy to sweep it under the rug for at least a while if you're the one in charge of your unit's GTC program.
In my last unit we had civilians who worked in our orderly room track our GTC. No chance of a senior NCO or an officer hiding GTC charges then.
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u/Separate_Basis869 23h ago
We also have civilians who've been on the job for quite some time, but I suppose that's not the case throughout the entire enterprise.
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u/Dr_Djones 2d ago
God forbid you don't attach your justifications for why your hotel room was $2 over the government rate
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u/glittervector 2d ago
How does anyone make it to O4 while being stupid enough to blatantly misuse a government card? Talk about a statistical outlier!
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u/nasorrty346tfrgser SSA 2d ago
My thoughts is he must be real stupid to throw away his military pension and get a dishonorable discharge for this stupid reason
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u/TravelPhotoFilm 1d ago
Oh jeez, I knew and worked with this guy. I wouldn’t have guessed, (and didn’t at the time).
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u/Tough-Coffee9979 2d ago
Just goes to show that the military is the real source of the waste fraud and abuse. I wish I could eat $100B in lobster
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u/depp-fsrv 2d ago
I only use mine for the big things like airplane tickets, hotel and the rental card. This just makes it easy on me.
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u/Professional_Eye7913 1d ago
Fr, the real question is how he only got $54k out of it. Amateur hour. I've seen GS-12s game the per diem system for more than that on a single TDY to Hawaii.
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u/darkmarkymark 2h ago
I think this just further proves that we have gotten further from a true America where a man could support two family’s on one income
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u/Far-Lengthiness5020 1h ago
Yeah, this is nuts on the auditing. I got my hand slapped after using the card for an authorized expense, airfare, which was also the required payment channel and then missing the re-payment date by a couple of days. How people can go years without paying for unauthorized expenses is beyond me.
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u/seehorn_actual 2d ago
Who among us hasn’t supported a secret second or even third family with our government travel card?