THE BRITISH East India Company had become de jure and de facto rulers of northern India after winning the battle of Plassey in 1757. Now they needed a strong fort to preserve, protect and defend their new-found territory. Captain Brohier of the Royal Engineers of the United Kingdom was entrusted with the gigantic job of building Fort William, Callcutta, India, and was given a large sum of money in good faith. The Royal Engineer officer decamped with the entire amount and the British masters were left in the lurch to just build castles in the air.
American army engineers
Three centuries later, the history of making money at government expense has repeated itself in the District of Columbia, in the US. I am not at all surprised. Indeed, many similar cases were reported and recorded elsewhere in the world but we shall let them rest for the time being.
Maybe we dive can deep into them at a later date when we are commissioned to do a serial TV documentary on frauds committed by the corps of engineers. No offence meant to them and none intended. After all, we are friends and comrades-in-arms.
The Corps of Engineers of the United States hit the headlines because the Engineer officers involved changed their lifestyle suddenly and went up from the middle class to the upper most class of the society. The amount of money involved ran into hundreds of millions of dollars. The overall supervising staff made a silly mistake of overlooking a small portion of the accounts submitted and the Project Managers as well as the major contractors were benefitted immensely at the cost of the public treasury
The swindlers made a mistake by becoming members of the high class gentry too soon. Bentley cars, big mansions, diamond jewellery for the ladies of the house, not mentioning costliest China silk for ballroom dance dresses and what have you gave the game plan away.. Not only the fraud already committed was caught but also a new cheating plan in the swindlers' pipeline was also detected and blown away by the District Attorney of the District of Columbia( read Washington DC).
Never has such a massive plan of cheating the Federal Government by the officers of the Corps of Engineers, contractors, sub-contractors been hatched and executed so secretly before as the present case. This case of fraud may be quoted as the finest example of a cheating project executed with military precision. Surprisingly no one is ashamed. They feel that they are all chips of the same block.
Universal fraternity
I have the highest regard for the Corps of Engineers and some of my dear friends belong from to this corps. However, the truth is that they are richer than officers of the same vintage working in other arms and services. I salute the honest Engineers and shall say cheers when I find one.
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