Unless you have reason to believe that people in your chain of command are complicit in the alleged fraud – you're asking for big trouble by going straight to CID.

Suppose everything is on the up and up? Then what?

You're gonna find yourself in your commander's office – along with your 1SG, PSG, and squad leader – having to explain yourself.

And then for the next several months, your going to be on everyone in your chain's sh!t list. Not to mention that you'll be tagged as the unit narc.

Let me clarify my statement so it is easier to understand. If the wife is living in Germany and is not maintaining a residence in the US but is using the BAH for the zip code in the US to pay for the residence in Germany that is BAH fraud. When I moved my wife non-command sponsored to Korea I received a lower BAH rate than what I was getting in the US. If I did not switch over to the Korea BAH rate and continued to receive the BAH rate for the state side location and pocketed the difference I would have been committing fraud. I don't know if that is what is going on in this Germany case.

The wife in Germany could be paying rent for a home in the US and is doing an extended stay in Germany and are paying their residence in Germany out of their own pocket than that would not be fraud.

As far as family separation allowance the soldier has to be involuntarily separated from his spouse. I'm not sure about Germany because he had the option to bring his wife. On deployment after 30 days that is when the family separation begins. That is what I was referring to in the above comment. On deployment when you go home on R&R they do not take the family separation away. It stops after you get back from deployment.

If the wife is living in Germany and not maintaining a residence in the US and drawing family separation it sounds fishy.

That is why I recommended the commenter check with his 1SG before going to CID because there could be a logical explanation.

"Plus the separation pay only starts 30 days after you last seen your spouse."

Complete bullsh!t. Your spouse stepping into country to see you for two weeks wouldn't alter FSP the slightest. It starts 30 days after you get to your unaccompanied duty station regardless of when you last saw your spouse.

"If his wife is with him in Germany and is receiving separation pay this is illegal"

Again bullsh!t, if he's on an unaccompanied assignment while having dependents then he'll receive it. Where his wife chooses to sleep for the night has zero bearing on FSP or anything else for that matter.

Thinking over this situation I can see ~exactly~ how this could happen in a completely legal way. Soldier + dependent are living in a CONUS location during his CONUS duty tour. Soldier comes up on orders for OCONUS duty assignment and opts to go unaccompanied (non-command sponsored). Soldier arrives at OCONUS location and is assigned government provided quarters (barracks or BEQ). Soldiers wife chooses to come over on their own without government assistance and rents an apartment in the local area near the soldiers OCONUS duty location. Everything she's doing is out of her own pocket, the government is not furnishing anything. He must maintain his government provided quarters and must also maintain his CONUS residence that the government is providing BAH for. This is legal.

Where you made your mistake is you hinged the BAH rate on where his wife decided to plant her civilian constitutionally protected tush at. The US Military couldn't give a damn if she lived in their CONUS residence, in Europe or in BFE, all they care about is that he is actively maintaining a residence at the location he specified for BAH and that the US government didn't provide any form of transportation for the wife in question. She could be standing outside the general's house jumping up and down, it wouldn't matter as the Military still considers her to be living in the CONUS residence. The military never paid for her tickets or to transport his household goods, their still in the states in the residence he's maintaining.

This fact is very important because we run into it whenever we ETS from the US Military while stationed OCONUS. Because I ETS'd while stationed in Korea and never used government funded transportation my residence is still considered to be in the states. Hence I don't qualify as a "ordinary resident" of South Korea.

BAH isn't provided for a "wife" its provided to pay for CONUS housing while the service member is stationed OCONUS. Any dependent can be living there (mortgages get into some weird rules though), a kid a brother, anyone who is legally a dependent of the service member qualifies. The general rule is you can never have more then one BAH and it must be for an area that you have a residence in. BAH fraud is when your claiming BAH for one area while maintaining a residence in another area. In the situation provided above it would be very easy for the service member to still be maintaining a residence at that exact location, bills and everything. He would be getting paid BAH for the area that he is maintaining that residence in while stationed OCONUS. While their OCONUS he would be provided OHA if living off base, otherwise he would be furnished government quarters (barracks). Receiving OHA does not preclude you from receiving BAH, receiving BAH is not contingent on you having a wife and her living somewhere. The moment the soldier gets assigned to another CONUS location their BAH would immediately be changed to what their duty location was. This rule is written this way as to not penalize soldiers who come up on overseas assignments by depraving them on the ability to pay their bills. I actually know several LTC's who are not married yet receive BAH for their stateside residences while their stationed OCONUS.

The separation pay sounds fishy to because you only get that when involuntarily separated from your family. The fact he is in Germany means he had an option to bring his family and did not. This would not entitle him to separation pay. Plus the separation pay only starts 30 days after you last seen your spouse. If his wife is with him in Germany and is receiving separation pay this is illegal:

http://www.armytimes.com/benefits/pay/military_ot…

The people to report it to would be CID. They should make quick work of whether the Soldier is committing fraud or not.

What I don't understand is how the unit leadership isn't detecting this on the unit finance report that the commander and 1SG should review each month? I recommend you go talk to your 1SG before calling CID.