The FBI has slapped a $150,000 bounty on Onur Simsek, a Turkish national accused of running a scheme to defraud the U.S. military through a front company based in Orlando, and federal officials say the fake parts it produced were headed for some of the country’s most critical weapons systems. Simsek was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters list this week, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida in Tampa.
According to the USAO Middle Florida, Simsek was barred from doing business with the U.S. government in 2018, yet went on to engage in a conspiracy to defraud the Department of Defense by entering into contracts to manufacture military components. The office says he deliberately concealed, misrepresented, and submitted false claims to the government for personal gain, at the expense of American taxpayers. Gregory W. Kehoe, the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, put it bluntly in a statement: “For that, he must be brought to justice.”
https://t.co/74Mbn2hkXbpic.twitter.com/GXmezxqmOD
— USAO Middle Florida (@USAO_MDFL) September 3, 2026
A Debarment He Allegedly Ignored
Simsek’s 2018 ban from federal contracting wasn’t his first brush with this exact kind of fraud. The Daily Muck reports he was previously convicted of a nearly identical defense procurement fraud scheme that same year in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, which resulted in a five-year federal debarment prohibiting him from government contracting through October 2023…