2023-12-26 05:01:00
The United States government released Colombian businessman Alex Saab, a key ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro who was facing money laundering charges in Florida, in exchange for the freedom of 10 Americans and 20 Venezuelans detained in its territory. Among the prisoners exchanged was Leonard Glenn Francis – better known as “Fat Leonard” – a Malaysian businessman who pleaded guilty in the largest corruption scandal in the history of the US Navy.
“A fugitive named Leonard Francis, who fled the United States before he could be convicted for his leading role in a brazen bribery and corruption case, was arrested and returned to the country from Venezuela to face justice for the crimes he committed. against the Government and the American people,” said Democratic President Joe Biden in a statement released by the White House. Francis was sent to a Miami jail, according to a spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons cited by The Washington Post. He is expected to be transferred to San Diego in the coming days to finally face the federal charges against him.
An untouchable contractor
Francis ran his family’s naval services business: Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd. (GDMA), a Singapore-based company that provided food, water and fuel to ships. For more than two decades, he served as a key contact for U.S. Navy ships in Asian ports. At that time he gained the favor of naval officers by giving them kobe meat, cigars, tickets to concerts and sex parties in luxury hotels. In exchange, they hid that the contractor was overcharging for supplies to the ships or that he was receiving payments for false services at the ports he controlled in Southeast Asia. In addition, they shared classified information with him and even redirected military ships to ports that were lucrative for his company, which gave him an advantage over his competitors in the field.
Even so, not all soldiers wanted to be part of the corruption plot that grew over the years. In 2004, Glenn Defense sent David Schaus, a lieutenant assigned to the Navy’s Ship Support Office in Hong Kong, a huge bill for pumping out 100,000 gallons of wastewater from a destroyer. who spent four days in port. That amount was impossible because the ship’s tanks held only 12,000 gallons and were serviced once a day. Schaus spoke to Francis to ask for an explanation, but the latter became furious at being called a liar. “The lieutenants don’t tell me what to do,” said the Malaysian, in response to the soldier’s refusal to pay the bill.
Two years later, Schaus reported to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) that “Fat Leonard’s” company overcharged the Navy $68,000 for pumping wastewater from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan during a three-day visit to a port in Asia. However, the case did not progress and the lieutenant resigned from his job a few months later. The same happened with 27 other NCIS investigations, all closed due to the collaboration of agents who responded to the contractor in exchange for bribes.
The collapse
Everything was rosy for Francis for several years until Navy officials finally realized he had infiltrated NCIS. In July 2013, they intentionally uploaded false reports to his database, indicating that other investigations against the company were closed, with the intention of making the Malaysian rely on his immunity. His lack of concern was such that, two months later, he fell into the trap that had been prepared for him: he traveled from Singapore to San Diego to meet with two Navy admirals, given the possibility of obtaining new contracts, but he was arrested at the Marriott Marquis hotel. where he was staying.
In an interview with The Washington Post, NCIS officials cited several reasons why Glenn Defense managed to evade investigations for so long. The most important, they said, was that NCIS downplayed fraud and corruption investigations after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when counterterrorism became the agency’s primary mission. Before that, NCIS had 140 special agents worldwide assigned to economic crimes, down from eight in 2002. Until 2008 there was not a single agent in charge of this issue in Asia. “There really wasn’t one person overseeing all of those complaints,” one of the officials said.
“Fat Leonard” pleaded guilty in 2015, admitting to offering more than $500,000 in cash bribes to Navy officials. Prosecutors claimed he defrauded the Navy of at least $35 million. Although he was facing a possible sentence of 25 years in prison, his sentencing was postponed several times due to his role as a key witness. That is, as part of his plea agreement, he assisted in the investigation that led to the conviction of several officers.
In 2018 the court granted him house arrest due to kidney cancer. Three weeks before his scheduled sentencing, on September 4, 2022, he broke his electronic anklet with metal-cutting scissors and fled. US authorities issued a “red notice”, a request to law enforcement agencies around the world to locate and provisionally detain a person pending extradition or surrender. They also offered a reward of $40,000 to anyone who gave information leading to the contractor’s whereabouts.
He was detained days later at the Simón Bolívar International Airport of Maiquetía, on the outskirts of Caracas. As part of his escape route, he first passed through Mexico and Cuba, until reaching Venezuela, from where he planned to travel to Russia, according to the Venezuelan delegation of Interpol through a publication on social networks.
currency exchange
Since then, despite being imprisoned, Francis intended for the Venezuelan authorities to grant him political asylum. However, all hopes for him were dashed on December 20 when he was transferred to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as part of the prisoner exchange agreed upon between the United States government and Venezuela. Subsequently, he was taken to a Miami jail, where he is currently, waiting to be transferred to San Diego to serve his sentence.
“I suspected that something was going to happen since the Criminal Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice never responded to any of my requests, not even regarding care for Leonard’s physical ailments. He is a man who has just undergone surgery in USA for kidney cancer. I was in charge of personally bringing him his medicine, but I never had a positive response regarding transferring him to a clinic or a hospital to be evaluated,” Marco Antonio Rodríguez-Acosta, the Malaysian’s lawyer in Venezuela.
He also stated that, from the moment his client was arrested in 2022, according to the Constitution and the Organic Code of Criminal Procedure (COPP), the United States had a period of 60 days to formalize the extradition request with all the documentation and necessary tests, which he did not perform. Furthermore, the highest body of the Venezuelan judicial system also did not issue a ruling during the 11 months following the expiration of said period. In that sense, Rodríguez-Acosta argued that the recent extradition of Francis was an arbitrary measure by the US and Venezuelan governments, by skipping the judicial procedure and not respecting the contractor’s right to defense. “This fact represents a hard blow for those who still trust in the independence of powers in both countries,” he remarked.
Inform: Axel Schwarzfeld
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