Semiannual Report to Congress #57 (October 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018)

I am pleased to submit our latest Semiannual Report to the United States Congress. This report highlights the activities of our office for the six months ending March 31, 2018, pursuant to the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended.

During this period, our office continued to pursue our vision of operating as a model OIG by independently generating objective, sophisticated, and timely products that address high-risk and high-impact areas among the company’s programs and operations. Our audit work examining the $1.6 billion Acela Express 2021 program identified potential oversight issues among 10 related infrastructure projects, four of which must be completed prior to 28 new trainsets being brought into revenue service. Also of note, a report on medical claims contracts found the company could improve medical claims fraud prevention and detection by including key fraud prevention requirements in its contracts.

Our investigative team continued to address criminal activity, ethical misconduct, and violations of company policies. Notably, we investigated an ethical transgression in which an executive wrongly accepted gifts from the owner of a company doing business with Amtrak and a case involving multiple employees’ theft of cash obtained from fraudulently refunded tickets. Additionally, a former employee was sentenced in federal court for making false statements to our agents after steering a contract to a family member for personal gain, and we continued to support a multi-year health care fraud investigation in Florida that has resulted in 18 convictions of individuals for health care fraud-related crimes.