Mafioso running charter schools?

[Hannah Bell]

apparently some are:

The dangerous job of DOE's special agents

How dangerous can an assignment be for an Education Department special agent? Pretty hazardous, a department spokeswoman said. That’s why the special agents carry guns...

The OIG is the law-enforcement arm of the Education Department, responsible for detecting waste, fraud, abuse and other criminal activity involving federal education funds, programs and operations.

for example:


*In 2004, a man with suspected ties to a Russian organized crime syndicate was sentenced as a result of an OIG investigation into the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal student aid involving a proprietary school he owned and another school with which he had connections. This investigation found that the man also stole more than $1 million from other federal programs.

*In 2004, OIG efforts led to the unraveling of a scheme involving members of a gang involved in drugs, extortion, arson, and racketeering who had stolen federal education funds from a charter school in Philadelphia they operated as well as from the Community College of Philadelphia.

You can find lists by year of the many fraud and other investigations in which agents were involved at the department’s website here.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/education-secretary-duncan/the-dangerous-job-of-does-spec.html