A Malaysian businessman behind the biggest fraud scandal in US Navy history has been caught after escaping house arrest, the BBC reports.
Leonard Glenn Francis, known as “Fat Leonard”, was captured in Venezuela while trying to board a plane to Russia.
On Wednesday, Venezuelan authorities arrested a 57-year-old man at Simon Bolivar de Maiquetia Airport. According to Interpol, he entered the country through Mexico with an intermediate stop in Cuba. Now he should be extradited to the United States.
How he managed to escape from prison
He was in custody at his home in California and managed to escape on September 4, a few weeks before his sentencing. The police then went to his home after problems with the GPS bracelet were discovered. “Upon arrival, they noticed that no one was home,” Omar Castillo, a spokesman for the US Marshals Service, told the BBC. Authorities learned the man managed to escape after cutting off the ankle bracelet he was being followed.
In San Diego, he was allowed to remain under house arrest due to health problems, including cancer.
The disgraceful scandal that rocked the US Navy
The detention of the Malaysian businessman is the latest chapter in a shameful scandal for the US Navy, where the US Department of Justice is talking about a colossal fraud of tens of millions of dollars.
In 2015, Leonard Glenn Francis pleaded guilty to corruption charges and cooperated with prosecutors.
He was the mastermind behind a major bribery scheme that operated through his Singaporean company that served the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet.
Prosecutors say he overcharged the U.S. Navy by $35 million and offered officers money, expensive meals, cigars, fancy drinks and sex parties at luxury hotels in a contract scheme.
In total, the businessman allegedly paid US Navy officers $500,000 in bribes to send ships to ports where his Francis company, which, among other things, was engaged in refueling ships, worked.
Dozens of naval officers became the target of the investigation. Currently, four of them have been convicted.
Source: Hot News RO
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