The FBI is offering a reward of up to $150,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a Turkish national accused of routing substandard, misrepresented parts into U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, submarines, Marine Corps armored vehicles, and Army tanks, according to a notice posted by the GSA Office of Inspector General. Onur Simsek is wanted on a federal warrant that accuses him of running a Central Florida front company that told the Department of Defense it was building qualified, U.S.-made components while the parts were actually manufactured in Turkey and repackaged domestically to look compliant with government specifications. The FBI's Tampa Division announced the reward on Sept. 3, 2026, and believes Simsek is now in Turkey, beyond the reach of U.S. marshals.
The warrant, issued Oct. 25, 2023, by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, lays out a scheme that ran from April 2019 through February 2022 and reached directly into the industrial base that keeps carrier strike groups, submarine fleets, and armored formations running.
How a Florida Shell Operation Hid Turkish-Made Parts From the Pentagon
According to the GSA OIG announcement, Simsek's Central Florida company allegedly won Department of Defense contracts for military components by falsely certifying itself as a qualified U.S. supplier with domestic manufacturing capability. Investigators say the parts were actually produced overseas in Turkey, then shipped back to the United States and repackaged so they would appear to originate from an approved domestic source and meet the specifications the government had paid for.
The destinations for those parts were not peripheral systems. Fox 35 Orlando, citing the case details, reported that the components were intended for installation on Navy aircraft carriers and submarines, Marine Corps armored vehicles, and Army tanks — hardware where a failed part is not a paperwork problem but a readiness and safety problem. "Testing later found the parts failed to meet required specifications, raising concerns they could have affected critical military systems," the outlet reported, describing findings from the government's review of the components.
The case was investigated jointly by the FBI's Tampa Division, the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General's Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), and the GSA OIG's Mid-Atlantic Investigations Division — a pairing that reflects how counterfeit-parts cases now cut across the acquisition system, from the contracting agency's own watchdog to the Pentagon's criminal investigators. The Justice Department is prosecuting the case, with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida fronting the public announcement alongside the investigative agencies. FBI Tampa Special Agent in Charge Rodney E. Crawford framed the exposure in stark terms: "This deception could have seriously compromised our national security; however, the proactive partnership in place allowed us to avoid a worst-case scenario."
Charges Span Export Control Law, Wire Fraud, and Money Laundering
The federal warrant does not treat this as a single-count fraud case. Simsek faces conspiracy to defraud the United States government, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering, conspiracy to commit export control violations, violations of the Export Control Reform Act, and violations of the Arms Export Control Act. Stacking export-control charges on top of the fraud counts signals that prosecutors view the misrepresentation of origin as more than a contracting violation — the underlying conduct implicates the controlled movement of defense-related technical data and hardware across borders, which is precisely the kind of transfer the Arms Export Control Act and Export Control Reform Act exist to police.
U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe of the Middle District of Florida, whose office is prosecuting the case, put the motive plainly: "He deliberately concealed, misrepresented, and submitted false claims to the government for his personal gain."
The nearly three-year gap between the October 2023 warrant and this week's reward announcement is itself notable. It suggests conventional extradition and law-enforcement channels have not been enough to bring Simsek back to a U.S. courtroom, pushing the FBI to turn to a public bounty — the same tool used for fugitives who have found durable safe harbor abroad — as the case's next move.
What It Means for Contractors
The Simsek case is a reminder that country-of-origin and qualified-manufacturer certifications are not administrative boxes to check — they are the government's primary defense against counterfeit and substandard parts entering weapons platforms, and DoD's investigative agencies treat a false certification as fraud from the moment it is submitted, not from the moment a part fails. Any contractor relying on a subcontractor's self-certified origin claims for parts destined for shipboard, submarine, or armored-vehicle programs should assume that claim will eventually be tested against actual manufacturing records, not just paperwork.
The export-control charges layered onto the fraud counts also extend the exposure beyond the False Claims Act universe that typically governs origin misrepresentation. Contractors who move defense-related components or technical data through third countries — even for repackaging or relabeling rather than manufacturing — should treat that step as a potential export-control event requiring its own compliance review, since prosecutors here are pursuing Arms Export Control Act and Export Control Reform Act violations alongside the underlying procurement fraud.
Finally, the joint DCIS/GSA OIG/FBI investigation underscores that counterfeit-parts enforcement is not confined to DoD prime contracts. GSA's Mid-Atlantic Investigations Division involvement signals that civilian-agency acquisition vehicles feeding into defense end-use are squarely in scope, and companies holding GSA schedule contracts that ultimately supply military components should not assume their agency-of-record shields them from a DCIS referral if origin claims do not hold up.
The size of the reward is also a signal in its own right. A $150,000 bounty for a single fugitive in a procurement-fraud case is a substantial commitment of federal resources, and it puts the broader defense-industrial base on notice that the government intends to pursue individuals who evade prosecution overseas rather than let unresolved counterfeit-parts cases quietly age off the docket. Prime contractors and subcontractors that supply carrier, submarine, or armored-vehicle programs should treat the case as confirmation that origin-verification audits are not a compliance formality but a live enforcement priority, with DCIS, GSA OIG, and the FBI all willing to stay on a case for years until an indicted supplier is brought in.
