Metro’s name gets thrown around a lot in anger by commuters. But it also can be used to gain respect, even to acquire apparently ill-gotten gains.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused an Illinois man this week of bilking $20 million from investors in part by saying he had a contract with the Metro system that had actually fallen through.
The SEC complaint says that Gregory E. Webb touted his InfrAegis Inc. company to investors, by telling them the company had a contract to install 15,000 machines that can detect the presence of weapons of mass destruction in the Washington subway system. According to the complaint, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority never awarded InfrAegis a contract for the deployment of the iaMedium device:
Webb is accused of continuing to plug the relationship to get investors, saying the deal would lead to more than $20 billion in revenue over the next two decades. For the record, Metro’s entire budget is just over $2 billion a year.
