Search-and-seizure warrants were executed at Berg Recycling today at the company's scrap yard and offices at 1401 W. Hamburg St., in the Carroll Camden Industrial Area in Southwest Baltimore. The lead agency conducting the raid was the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), confirmed Gary Comerford, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General.
At 12:45 p.m., City Paper received an e-mail from a neighboring business owner, who wrote that there are "12 vehicles in front of Berg Recycling" and that agents are "pulling out paperwork and computers right now" from the company's offices.
Shortly after 1 p.m., a City Paper reporter observed law enforcers milling about the Berg Recycling entrance. The door to the company's office was open, and other agents could be seen inside. Several dark sedans and SUVs with Virginia and Maryland plates were parked nearby.
"We're wrapping it up right now," said Charles R. Gillum, DCIS' resident agent in charge in Baltimore, who was at the scene of the raid. Other than to explain that the operation is part of an "ongoing investigation," Gillum provided no further comment.
"The only thing we can say at this time," Comerford wrote in an e-mail to City Paper, "is that the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the criminal investigative arm of the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General, along with other law enforcement agencies was involved in the execution of search warrants at the location you indicated."
Comerford also wrote that "DCIS special agents investigate Defense-related cases involving contract fraud, corruption, technology and munitions theft and diversion, cyber crime, substandard and defective products, and terrorism."
City Paper could not immediately learn whether Berg Recycling—or other entities related to the company's owner, Gerald W. "Buzz" Berg—has Department of Defense contracts. An attempt to reach Berg through one of his lawyers, Roger Bennett, was not successful as of this writing.
