For months, a small team of U.S. Navy investigators
and federal prosecutors secretly devised options for a high-stakes
international manhunt. Could the target be snatched from his home base
in Asia and rendered to the United States? Or held captive aboard an
American warship?
Making the challenge even tougher was the fact that the man was a
master of espionage. His moles had burrowed deep into the Navy hierarchy
to leak him a stream of military secrets, thwarting previous efforts to
bring him to justice.The target was not a terrorist, nor a spy for a foreign power, nor the kingpin of a drug cartel. But rather a 350-pound defense contractor nicknamed Fat Leonard, who had befriended a generation of Navy leaders with cigars and liquor whenever they made port calls in Asia.
Leonard Glenn Francis was legendary on the high seas for his charm and his appetite for excess. For years, the Singapore-based businessman had showered Navy officers with gifts, epicurean dinners, prostitutes and, if necessary, cash bribes so they would look the other way while he swindled the Navy to refuel and resupply its ships.
In the end, federal agents settled on a risky sting operation to try to nab Fat Leonard. They would lure him to California, dangling a meeting with admirals who hinted they had lucrative contracts to offer.
He took the bait. On Sept. 16, 2013, Francis was arrested in his hotel suite overlooking San Diego’s harbor. It was the opening strike in a sweep covering three states and seven countries, as hundreds of law enforcement agents arrested other suspects and seized incriminating files from Francis’s business empire.
A 51-year-old Malaysian citizen, Francis has since pleaded guilty to fraud and bribery charges. His firm, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, is financially ruined.
But his arrest exposed something else that is still emerging three years later: a staggering degree of corruption within the Navy itself.
Much more than a contracting scandal, the investigation has revealed how Francis seduced the Navy’s storied 7th Fleet, long a proving ground for admirals given its strategic role in patrolling the Pacific and Indian oceans.
In perhaps the worst national-security breach of its kind to hit the Navy since the end of the Cold War, Francis doled out sex and money to a shocking number of people in uniform who fed him classified material about U.S. warship and submarine movements. Some also leaked him confidential contracting information and even files about active law enforcement investigations into his company.
He exploited the intelligence for illicit profit, brazenly ordering his moles to redirect aircraft carriers to ports he controlled in Southeast Asia so he could more easily bilk the Navy for fuel, tugboats, barges, food, water and sewage removal.
Over at least a decade, according to documents filed by prosecutors, Glenn Defense ripped off the Navy with little fear of getting caught because Francis had so thoroughly infiltrated the ranks.
The company forged invoices, falsified quotes and ran kickback schemes. It created ghost subcontractors and fake port authorities to fool the Navy into paying for services it never received.
Francis and his firm have admitted to defrauding the Navy of $35 million, though investigators believe the real amount could be much greater.
“I ask, when has something like this, bribery of this magnitude, ever happened in this district or in our country’s history?” Robert Huie, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego, said during a court hearing last year. “Mr. Francis’s conduct has passed from being merely exceptional to being the stuff of history and legend.”
But his arrest exposed something else that is still emerging three years later: a staggering degree of corruption within the Navy itself.
Much more than a contracting scandal, the investigation has revealed how Francis seduced the Navy’s storied 7th Fleet, long a proving ground for admirals given its strategic role in patrolling the Pacific and Indian oceans.
In perhaps the worst national-security breach of its kind to hit the Navy since the end of the Cold War, Francis doled out sex and money to a shocking number of people in uniform who fed him classified material about U.S. warship and submarine movements. Some also leaked him confidential contracting information and even files about active law enforcement investigations into his company.
He exploited the intelligence for illicit profit, brazenly ordering his moles to redirect aircraft carriers to ports he controlled in Southeast Asia so he could more easily bilk the Navy for fuel, tugboats, barges, food, water and sewage removal.
Over at least a decade, according to documents filed by prosecutors, Glenn Defense ripped off the Navy with little fear of getting caught because Francis had so thoroughly infiltrated the ranks.
The company forged invoices, falsified quotes and ran kickback schemes. It created ghost subcontractors and fake port authorities to fool the Navy into paying for services it never received.
Francis and his firm have admitted to defrauding the Navy of $35 million, though investigators believe the real amount could be much greater.
“I ask, when has something like this, bribery of this magnitude, ever happened in this district or in our country’s history?” Robert Huie, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego, said during a court hearing last year. “Mr. Francis’s conduct has passed from being merely exceptional to being the stuff of history and legend.”
The scope of the investigation
Authorities in the United States and
Singapore have filed criminal charges against 14 people so far.
Prosecutors say 200 people are under scrutiny, but only a few have been
named publicly.
Known
Unknown
pleadED
guilty
UNDER
INVESTIGATION
Charged
About 30 admirals are under investigation.
Today, the Navy remains in the grip of overlapping civilian and
military investigations that are slowly unraveling long skeins of
misconduct.
So far, four Navy officers, an enlisted sailor and a senior agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) have pleaded guilty to federal crimes and are already behind bars or are facing prison time. So have Francis and two other Glenn Defense executives.
On Friday, three more current and former Navy officers were charged in federal court with corruption-related offenses. Charges are also pending against two former Navy contracting officials who were arrested last year. Many others remain under investigation.
Exactly how many is a mystery. When he pleaded guilty, Francis admitted to bribing “scores” of Navy officials with cash, sex and gifts worth millions of dollars — all so he could win more defense contracts and overcharge with impunity.
A federal prosecutor hinted at the extent of the case last year when he said in court that more than 200 “subjects” were under investigation.
A striking portion of the Navy’s senior brass could be tarnished. In December, Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, summoned about 200 admirals to a special gathering in Washington.
Without naming names, he revealed that about 30 of them were under criminal investigation by the Justice Department or ethical scrutiny by the Navy for their connections to Francis, according to two senior Navy officials with direct knowledge of the meeting.
The damage to the Navy could match the toll from the Tailhook scandal of the early 1990s, when 14 admirals were reprimanded or forced to resign over an epic outbreak of sexual assault at a naval aviators’ convention.
Because all but five of the 14 defendants charged in the Fat Leonard case have pleaded guilty, and no trials have taken place, only a small fraction of the evidence has been made public so far.
So far, four Navy officers, an enlisted sailor and a senior agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) have pleaded guilty to federal crimes and are already behind bars or are facing prison time. So have Francis and two other Glenn Defense executives.
On Friday, three more current and former Navy officers were charged in federal court with corruption-related offenses. Charges are also pending against two former Navy contracting officials who were arrested last year. Many others remain under investigation.
Exactly how many is a mystery. When he pleaded guilty, Francis admitted to bribing “scores” of Navy officials with cash, sex and gifts worth millions of dollars — all so he could win more defense contracts and overcharge with impunity.
A federal prosecutor hinted at the extent of the case last year when he said in court that more than 200 “subjects” were under investigation.
A striking portion of the Navy’s senior brass could be tarnished. In December, Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, summoned about 200 admirals to a special gathering in Washington.
Without naming names, he revealed that about 30 of them were under criminal investigation by the Justice Department or ethical scrutiny by the Navy for their connections to Francis, according to two senior Navy officials with direct knowledge of the meeting.
The damage to the Navy could match the toll from the Tailhook scandal of the early 1990s, when 14 admirals were reprimanded or forced to resign over an epic outbreak of sexual assault at a naval aviators’ convention.
Because all but five of the 14 defendants charged in the Fat Leonard case have pleaded guilty, and no trials have taken place, only a small fraction of the evidence has been made public so far.
Leonard Francis
President and chief executive officer, Glenn Defense Marine AsiaPunishment Sentence pending.
Has admitted to bribing ‘scores’ of Navy officials with millions of dollars so they would leak him classified and confidential information about Navy operations, which he used in turn to gouge the Navy for port services.
Read more
This account of how Francis corrupted the Navy is based on interviews
with more than two dozen current and former Navy officials, as well as
hundreds of pages of court filings, contracting records and military
documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Ethan Posner, an attorney for Francis, declined to comment. The Navy declined interview requests and referred questions to the Justice Department.
Laura Duffy, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California whose office is leading the investigation, declined to answer questions. “The investigation continues apace, uncovering substantial wrongdoing,” she said in a brief statement.
The investigation has mushroomed partly because Glenn Defense was a pillar of U.S. maritime operations for a quarter-century.The 7th Fleet depended on the firm more than any other to refuel and resupply its vessels.
Over time, Francis became so skilled at cultivating Navy informants that it was a challenge to juggle them all. On a near-daily basis, they pelted him with demands for money, prostitutes, hotel rooms and plane tickets.
“The Soviets couldn’t have penetrated us better than Leonard Francis,” said a retired Navy officer who worked closely with Francis and spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisal. “He’s got people skills that are off the scale. He can hook you so fast that you don’t see it coming. . . . At one time he had infiltrated the entire leadership line. The KGB could not have done what he did.”
Ethan Posner, an attorney for Francis, declined to comment. The Navy declined interview requests and referred questions to the Justice Department.
Laura Duffy, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California whose office is leading the investigation, declined to answer questions. “The investigation continues apace, uncovering substantial wrongdoing,” she said in a brief statement.
The investigation has mushroomed partly because Glenn Defense was a pillar of U.S. maritime operations for a quarter-century.The 7th Fleet depended on the firm more than any other to refuel and resupply its vessels.
Over time, Francis became so skilled at cultivating Navy informants that it was a challenge to juggle them all. On a near-daily basis, they pelted him with demands for money, prostitutes, hotel rooms and plane tickets.
“The Soviets couldn’t have penetrated us better than Leonard Francis,” said a retired Navy officer who worked closely with Francis and spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisal. “He’s got people skills that are off the scale. He can hook you so fast that you don’t see it coming. . . . At one time he had infiltrated the entire leadership line. The KGB could not have done what he did.”
No comments:
Post a Comment