When someone gets tricked in a shell game, is it fine because they voluntarily bought into it? Would you legalize such schemes? Of course any scam (short of outright extortion and robbery) relies on the victim to voluntarily hand over money. We could take a social Darwinist approach to business and say any way you gain an advantage is legitimate as long as it's not by physical force. But obviously something nefarious is going on here, because no one would knowingly overpay by that much for no apparent benefit. It's likely kickbacks were involved. This is fraud, they're stealing taxpayer funds.