“Fat Leonard” Francis, the former U.S. Navy contractor accused of bribing military officials for nearly a decade, is on the verge of returning to U.S. custody as part of a prisoner swap with Venezuela – after more than a year of fleeing house arrest in San Diego and escaping to South America.
Key Facts
Francis, a Malaysian national, managed Glenn Defense Marine Asia, a defense contracting company in Singapore that provided services to the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet in Southeast Asia.
Francis was charged with bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery, and conspiracy to defraud the United States after he was lured by federal agents to San Diego in 2013.
He pleaded guilty in 2015 and revealed seven Navy officers who accepted bribes or passed on confidential information, but many other officers were implicated in the scandal and have since been investigated.
Under the plea agreement, Francis admitted to bribing U.S. Navy officers with cash, prostitutes, first-class travel, luxury hotel visits, spa treatments, lavish meals of Cuban beef and Spanish suckling pig, and exotic gifts including Cuban cigars, handcrafted ship models, and decorative swords.
They then turned a blind eye as Francis overbilled the U.S. Navy for services such as refueling, tugboat services, and waste disposal by more than $35 million – which he agreed to pay back along with compensation, an amount yet to be determined.
Main Background
Leonard has been detained as part of a prisoner swap facilitated by the Biden administration with the Venezuelan government. In exchange for the release of Alex Saab, a Colombian national charged with money laundering in the U.S., Venezuela released 20 prisoners, including all ten Americans currently held in the country. The White House stated that six of the Americans were “wrongfully detained” and repeated the State Department’s travel warning for this South American country.
Among the Venezuelan prisoners released was opposition figure Roberto Abdullah, leader of the election monitoring volunteer organization Sumate, according to White House officials. Abdullah had been arrested and charged with treason alongside other opposition leaders two weeks earlier, according to a Reuters report. Venezuela is scheduled to hold a presidential election in 2024, but the country’s last presidential election was heavily criticized by the United States as being fraudulent. The White House stated that it will continue to “monitor the situation closely” in Venezuela leading up to the elections.
Further Reading
For more information, you can check the following articles:
- “Fat Leonard” Arrested in Venezuela After Fleeing House Arrest in the U.S. – by Robert Hart
- As Investigators Uncover Major Issues, U.S. Navy Blames “Fat Leonard” – by Craig Hooper
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