Rear Admiral Timothy Giardina, who was fired from post as second in command of US nuclear forces last year, may have made counterfeit $500 poker chips

The admiral who was fired from his position as second in command of US nuclear forces has been accused of making his own fake $500 poker chips in order to feed a gambling habit that saw him haunting casinos near the bunkers where America keeps its cold war-era arsenal.

Rear Admiral Timothy Giardina was removed as deputy head of US Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska, last year. In May he was found guilty in a military investigation of “conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman”.

Giardina was charged with using counterfeit gambling chips, which saw him banned for life from an entire network of casinos, and lying to an investigator.

It emerged on Saturday that he is accused of making his own counterfeit poker chips using paint and stickers, according to documents seen by the Associated Press. He had claimed to have found the chips, but investigators said they found his DNA on the underside of an adhesive sticker used to alter genuine $1 poker chips to make them look like $500 chips.

It had not been previously disclosed how extensively the senior officer had gambled. Records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed Giardina to be a habitual poker player, spending an average of 15 hours a week at the Horseshoe casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa, during the span of time under investigation.

The casino is a 15-minute drive across the Missouri River from America’s nuclear bomb arsenal in Omaha. In June 2013, Giardina was discovered using three fake poker chips there.

His case is just one of the more colourful in a catalogue of problems that have plagued the US nuclear force, which is maintained by the navy. Disciplinary problems, security flaws, weak morale and leadership lapses prompted defense secretary Chuck Hagel to announce comprehensive changes in the management of the nuclear force earlier this month. The change is slated to cost $10bn.

The new records show that Giardina was such a familiar figure at his local casino that some there knew him as “Navy Tim”. He has been demoted from a three-star rank to two-star and assigned a desk job in Washington.

Even after Giardina was caught trying to use counterfeit chips he “continued to come in and gamble on a regular basis” at one casino, according to an account by an Iowa division of criminal investigation agent that was turned over to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in August 2013.

The report included Giardina’s remarks to a casino security agent about the polygraphs – or lie-detector tests – given at nuclear headquarters, Strategic Command, to officers holding security clearances.

“[What] they’re really trying to do is find out if you got, you know, if you’re having sex with animals or something really crazy or you’ve got this wild life that you could be blackmailed into giving military secrets out,” he was quoted as saying.

At Strategic Command, Giardina was privy to highly sensitive national security secrets. Legal gambling by Strategic Command officers with security clearances is not prohibited or limited by policy, although if officers incur excessive debt they are required to report it, according to the command’s chief spokeswoman, navy captain Pamela Kunze.

At another casino Giardina was observed taking cigarette ends out of public ash trays and smoking them, according to investigators’ documents.

In addition to the “unbecoming” military ruling he was given a written reprimand and ordered to forfeit $4,000 in pay. The navy chose not to pursue a court martial because it was uncertain it could get a conviction, officials said.

The military lab that tested the fake chips concluded that the centre section of a genuine $500 chip had been photocopied or scanned and then printed on to adhesive stickers. The stickers were then applied to the front and back of genuine $1 chips to make them appear to be real $500 chips. One of the problems, however, was that the adhesive stickers covered up a security feature embedded in the chips and visible only with ultraviolet light.

The counterfeiter also apparently hand-painted the $1 chips to try to simulate the color scheme of a genuine $500 chip. Security officials were able to scratch off the paint.