A Major Contract Despite a Troubled Track Record
In late 2012, military contractor DynCorp International was awarded a $72.8 million Pentagon contract to train pilots for the Air Force. The contract came approximately one week after the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) rated the company’s earlier work at the Kunduz army base as “unsatisfactory.”
SIGAR’s reports from 2010 and 2012 documented serious deficiencies in DynCorp’s construction work, including soil stability problems, structural failures, improper grading, and sinkholes. One sinkhole was discovered near an electrical power transformer, creating a risk of power loss, fire, and electrical shock across a large portion of Camp Pamir.
The new contract raised questions about how defense contractors with documented performance failures continue to receive government funding — and in this case, were reportedly granted advance liability protections.
A Pattern of Misconduct Findings
DynCorp’s issues extended well beyond construction quality. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) investigated the company and identified 10 instances of misconduct. Among the findings was a whistleblower lawsuit in which DynCorp agreed to pay $7.7 million to settle allegations of submitting inflated claims for camp construction in Iraq.
The State Department’s inspector general separately reported that DynCorp owed the government $157,000 to reimburse food shortages at Camp Falcon in Kabul, Afghanistan, between November 2009 and January 2010.
These findings echoed similar patterns documented at other major defense contractors, where budget inflation through equipment destruction, unnecessary spending, and fraudulent billing had been reported.
Human Trafficking Allegations in Bosnia
The most disturbing allegations against DynCorp involved human trafficking. A Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit filed in 2002 in Texas on behalf of former DynCorp aircraft mechanic Ben Johnston alleged that company employees and supervisors in Bosnia were purchasing women and children.
According to the lawsuit, Johnston discovered in late 1999 that DynCorp personnel were “engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior” including purchasing illegal weapons, women, and forged passports. The filing stated that employees “would brag about the various ages and talents of the individual slaves they had purchased.”
Johnston, a military veteran from Texas, reported the behavior internally. Rather than being protected as a whistleblower, he was terminated by DynCorp. The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division placed Johnston in protective custody and arranged his safe extraction from Kosovo back to the United States.
Congressional Scrutiny
The trafficking allegations reached the floor of Congress. In a 2005 hearing, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney directly questioned Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about DynCorp’s involvement in human trafficking and why the company continued to receive government contracts.
McKinney noted that while President Bush had delivered a speech at the United Nations in September 2003 calling for the punishment of those involved in sex trafficking, DynCorp — which had been exposed for employee involvement in buying and selling women and children — continued to hold Pentagon contracts including vaccine administration programs.
When pressed on whether it was government policy to reward companies implicated in trafficking, Rumsfeld acknowledged the allegations had credibility but attributed the conduct to individual employees rather than institutional practice.
No Meaningful Accountability
Despite the severity of the allegations, no comprehensive investigation into DynCorp’s institutional role in trafficking was publicly conducted. The company continued to receive government contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the years following both the RICO lawsuit and the congressional inquiry.
The DynCorp case illustrated a recurring pattern in defense contracting: companies with documented histories of misconduct, poor performance, and serious criminal allegations continued to receive public funding. The lack of meaningful consequences raised fundamental questions about oversight mechanisms, the revolving door between government and private contractors, and whether the scale and complexity of military outsourcing had created entities that were effectively immune to accountability.
The 2010 film The Whistleblower, starring Rachel Weisz, dramatized the real events surrounding the trafficking allegations in Bosnia, bringing wider public attention to the case.