He escaped after bribing Navy officials. Now Venezuela is sending ‘Fat Leonard’ back
It’s one of the largest bribery scandals in U.S. military history: a defense contractor bribing dozens of Navy officials with cash, prostitutes and luxury goods worth millions of dollars in order to win more contracts and overcharge the government for its services.
Now, the man at the center of that bribery scheme, a Malaysian businessman named Leonard Glenn Francis — better known as “Fat Leonard” — is heading back to the U.S. after fleeing the country ahead of his 2022 sentencing hearing, while under house arrest.
A senior U.S. official said on Wednesday that Francis — whose escape was widely viewed as a blunder by the U.S. government — would soon be flown back to the U.S. where he will be placed in a federal detention facility, describing Francis’ scheme as “one of the most brazen bribery conspiracies in the U.S. Navy’s history.”
“The United States will now assure that he is held fully accountable for his time, as well as for his attempts to escape from justice,” the official told reporters.
What did he do?
According to charging documents, the bribery scheme began in 2004, when Francis and his company Glenn Defense Marine Asia began offering several Navy officials “cash, gifts, travel expenses, entertainment and the services of prostitutes.”
“In return for these things of value, the public officials provided Francis and GDMA with classified and other proprietary, internal U.S. Navy information, and used their positions and influence within the U.S. Navy to advocate for and advance the interests of Francis and GDMA, all as opportunities arose,” the charges read.
Francis and his company provided “husbanding” services for the U.S. Navy; services that involved coordinating, scheduling and procuring items and services for ships and submarines at port.
But Francis and GDMA repeatedly overcharged the Navy and submitted fraudulent claims, prosecutors say. In an effort to evade detection, Francis also bribed a Navy Criminal Investigative Service official in exchange for “law enforcement sensitive information,” as well as “advice and counsel about ongoing NCIS criminal investigations into the activities of Francis and GDMA.”
The scheme would last nearly a decade before Francis was arrested in a San Diego hotel room during a 2013 law enforcement raid. He pleaded guilty in 2015 to conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Prosecutors say he scammed the Navy out of at least $35 million.
According to his plea agreement, Francis faced a sentence of up to 25 years in prison.
How did he end up in Venezuela?
Francis spent years in custody before being put under house arrest in San Diego under federal supervision as he awaited sentencing, due to failing health. But his case would take a turn in 2022, when he cut off his ankle-monitor and fled the U.S. just three weeks before his sentencing hearing, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, which, along with NCIS, issued a $40,000 reward for his capture at the time.
U.S. officials said that Francis initially fled to Mexico, then Cuba, before eventually arriving in Venezuela, where he was arrested before boarding a flight at the Simon Bolivar International Airport outside Caracas. He has been in Venezuelan custody ever since and, according to The Associated Press, requested asylum there.
While the U.S. and Venezuela have an extradition agreement, the complicated relationship between the two countries made his return to the U.S. uncertain.
That changed, however, when the U.S. agreed to free a close ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — Colombian-born businessman Alex Saab — in exchange for the return of Francis and 10 Americans detained by Maduro’s government.
