G4S Has Been Charging The Government For Electronic Tags On Dead People

The outsourcing company known for failing to supply Olympics staff is having a nightmare. Protecting your world.

Outsourcing company G4S has paid £24m to the government after admitting overcharging for electronic tags.

Via en.wikipedia.org

Since 2005 the company has been responsible for electronically tagging offenders who are on release from prison, enabling their movements to be monitored without being in a cell.

But this summer the government accused it and fellow outsourcer Serco of ripping off the taxpayer and charging for people who no longer need monitoring.

G4S now faces a fraud investigation.

G4S even charged the government to electronically tag dead people.

The company now says that its old billing practices were "not consistent with the contract or G4S' values".

A government audit also found that G4S charged the government to tag offenders who were back in prison. Or were abroad.

(It's only a couple of years since two G4S employees electronically tagged an offender's false leg.)

They were sacked after tagging criminal Christopher Lowcock on the wrong leg. He would simply remove the limb and go about his normal business.

This follows last year's chaos when G4S won the contract to supply security staff for the London Olympics.

mkcjames / Via Flickr: mkcjames

A few weeks before the event the company admitted that it hadn't recruited anything like enough staff.

So the armed forces had to make up the shortfall.

The company's floppy-haired boss Nick Buckles resigned following that chaos.

The CBI / Via Flickr: the-cbi

G4S is still a massive security company. It runs everything from prisons to border controls on behalf of governments around the world.

But probably the worst thing that G4S have produced is this company song.

It's called "Securing Your World". After the Olympics fiasco they attempted to scrub it from the internet.