El Paso garment plant raided by federal agents
Associated Press/Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX
EL PASO, Texas – Federal authorities raided an El Paso garment plant Tuesday, seizing truckloads of documents and computerized records.
About 65 federal agents served a sealed search warrant at a National Center for the Employment of the Disabled clothing company, which makes military uniforms, said Andrea Simmons, an FBI spokeswoman in El Paso.
Simmons would not discuss what prompted the warrant or what investigators from the FBI, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command-Major Fraud Unit and the U.S. General Services Administration were seeking.
For much of the last year, NCED has been the subject of another federal probe over it’s work force.
According to the company’s contracts, 75 percent of its employees are supposed to be severely disabled. But a review of the nonprofit concluded that only about 7 percent of employees met the requirement.
The nonprofit’s government contracts, worth an estimated $275 million last year, have been suspended pending the outcome of the civil investigation.
NCED’s longtime president and CEO Bob Jones resigned earlier this year.
