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| Photo Credit: AP. |
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A Malaysian defense contractor nicknamed “Fat Leonard” who orchestrated one of the largest bribery scandals in U.S. military history has been arrested in Venezuela after fleeing before his sentencing, authorities said Wednesday.
The
international manhunt for Leonard Glenn Francis ended with his arrest by
Venezuelan authorities Tuesday morning at the Caracas airport as he was about
to board an airplane for another country, the U.S. Marshals Service said.
Francis had
traveled to Venezuela from Mexico with a stopover in Cuba, Interpol Venezuela
Director General Carlos Garate Rondon said in a statement posted on Instagram.
Francis was headed to Russia and was arrested at the main international airport
in Caracas, the agency said.
The arrest
came on the eve of his scheduled sentencing in a federal court in California
for a bribery scheme that lasted more than a decade and involved dozens of U.S.
Navy officers.
There was no
immediate word on when he might be extradited to the United States.
The U.S.
government faces an uphill challenge returning the fugitive back to American
soil. The U.S. government doesn’t recognize Nicolas Maduro’s socialist
government, has no embassy in the country and has imposed crushing sanctions on
the country that has further embittered relations. Law enforcement cooperation
between the two countries is rare.
Francis was
under home arrest in San Diego when he cut off his GPS ankle bracelet and
escaped on Sept. 4. Ten U.S. agencies searched for Francis and authorities
issued a $40,000 reward for his arrest.
U.S.
authorities also issued a red notice, which asks law enforcement worldwide to
provisionally arrest someone with the possibility of extradition. Malaysia and
Singapore both have extradition agreements with the United States.
Francis
pleaded guilty in 2015 to offering prostitution services, luxury hotels,
cigars, gourmet meals and more than $500,000 in bribes to Navy officials and
others to help his Singapore-based ship servicing company, Glenn Defense Marine
Asia Ltd. or GDMA. Prosecutors said the company overcharged the Navy by at
least $35 million for servicing ships, many of which were routed to ports he
controlled in the Pacific.
Francis had
been allowed to remain in home confinement to receive medical care while he
cooperated with the prosecution. With his help, prosecutors secured convictions
of 33 of 34 defendants, including more than two dozen Navy officers.
U.S. District
Court Judge Janis Sammartino had feared Francis would run when she denied a
request four years ago to allow him to be under house arrest without around-the-clock
security guards.
The judge
repeatedly maintained that security guards must be on site for Francis to be on
house arrest, despite his poor health.
According to
a transcript of a closed-door hearing in February 2018, which was unsealed in
January, Sammartino expressed concern that her name would come up if Francis
escaped and ended up back in Malaysia if anyone asked “who let somebody do this
without security.”
She raised
similar concerns in a Dec. 17, 2020, after receiving a report that the home was
left without anyone guarding it for nearly three hours, according to the court
transcript. The guard was on a lunch break, and Francis apologized to the judge
for the mishap.
Officials
found no security guards when they arrived at Francis’ home in a tony San Diego
neighborhood some seven hours after he removed the ankle monitor, according to
Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marsha, Omar Castillo. The device, believed to have
been removed with heavy scissors, was found in the home.
Castillo
said someone had called the San Diego police department, which sent officers to
the home on the afternoon of Sept. 4. Officers found the home empty and
contacted U.S. Pre-Trial Services, the federal agency in charge of his
confinement, which then contacted the U.S. Marshals Service.
Neighbors
reported seeing U-Haul trucks coming and going from the home one or two days
before the escape, Castillo said.