WASHINGTON — The alleged defrauding of the federal government by U.S. Investigations Services took place in the company’s offices in Boyers and Grove City, according to a federal complaint filed Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Between 2008 and 2012, USIS released at least 665,000 incomplete background investigations to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which was about 40 percent of the total investigations from that time, the complaint said.

The company, based in Falls Church, Va., is contracted to do background checks for potential employees of departments of the federal government. After a background check is completed, reviewers do quality control reviews on the cases before they are submitted to the OPM.

Starting in 2008 and continuing to at least September 2012, USIS management began working out ways to avoid the quality control reviews to increase profits, according to the complaint. The practice was known internally as “dumping” or “flushing.”

Workers allegedly began dumping cases manually, but soon began using a software program called Blue Zone to dump cases more quickly. Managers assigned priority codes to cases to help determine which cases to dump.

Initially, the alleged dumping would take place at the end of the day, to meet company goals. However, dumping became more frequent over time, the complaint said.

The complaint said that company management was well aware of the practice and even directed it. After the president and CEO established revenue goals, the chief financial officer would allegedly determine how many cases needed to be dumped, which would be conveyed to several other managers.

One manager, the workload leader in Western Pennsylvania, worked with managers in the company’s headquarters to set the number of cases that needed to be dumped, the complaint said.

Dumping allegedly increased at the end of the month, quarter and year to meet internal goals and increase profits.

In an e-mail between managers, one said that the only way to do reviews more quickly was to either hire more employees or continue to dump cases.

Another e-mail between managers said, “Shelves are as clean as they could get. Flushed everything like a dead goldfish,” the complaint said.

Another e-mail, the complaint said, showed one manager writing to another, “Scalping tickets for Dick Clark’s Dumpin’ New Year’s Eve? Who needs 2? Have a bit of a backlog building, but fortunately, most people are off this week so no one will notice!”

The complaint also said that USIS took a number of steps to conceal the dumping, including halting the practice during auditing periods.

From 2008 to 2010, USIS received $11.7 million in bonus payments from the government, which, the complaint said, would not have been awarded if it was aware of the dumping.

The background investigations involved included those for the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Transportation Department and the Treasury Department.

The three total offices in Boyers and Grove City employ a total of 1,500 of the company’s 6,000 workers.

In a statement, the company said that the allegations “relate to a small group of individuals over a specific time period,” and that it first learned of such allegations two years ago, which caused it to appoint a new leadership team and enhance its oversight procedures.

USIS is cooperating with investigators, the statement said.