Francis was responsible for one of the most humiliating events in US Navy history, according to accounts.
The White House has verified that the notorious billionaire on the run, also known as Fat Leonard, has been freed as part of a prisoner exchange with Venezuela.
The criminal, whose true identity is Leonard Glenn Francis, planned a fraud against the US Navy for $35 million (£30 million). In 2022, he broke free from US imprisonment.
As part of the agreement, ten US citizens who were detained in Venezuela were freed.
In return, the US freed President of Venezuela’s advisor Alex Saab.
Francis, the deal’s most well-known prisoner, was apprehended in September 2022 while attempting to board a flight from Venezuela to Russia while evading US officials.
Two weeks prior, the Malaysian billionaire had escaped from house detention in California, where he was being held after confessing to his involvement in a massive scheme involving the involvement of numerous military officers and costing the US tens of millions of dollars.
According to the prosecution, he defrauded the US Navy by using his Singapore-based company, which had contracts to maintain US military ships, and by offering gifts and cash as bribes to American commanders.
Francis was accused of providing US officials with gifts worth millions of dollars, including opulent excursions, “top-shelf alcohol and wine,” Spanish suckling pigs, Cuban cigars, and access to prostitute services, in court records contained in his plea deal.
Francis was first detained in 2013. In 2015, he entered a guilty plea for allegedly offering bribes totaling $500,000 (£444,000).
Fat Leonard, a podcast that journalist Tom Wright co-hosted with Francis, revealed to the BBC that Francis overcharged the US Navy in order to earn “huge amounts of money” during the 9/11 terror attacks.
Mr. Wright went on to say that Francis was “furious” over what he perceived to be a cover-up and had agreed to do the podcast. “The admirals who were associated with him were not prosecuted criminally. More lower level policemen were brought to court in the US.
Francis will now be “sentenced for his lead role in a brazen bribery and corruption case,” according to a statement released by President Joe Biden.
He continued, “I am grateful that their ordeal is finally over, and that these families are being made whole once more,” a reference to the other US citizens freed by Venezuela.
Mr. Saab, Nicolás Maduro’s trusted aide, will also return as part of the swap agreement.
He was accused of using money laundering techniques to support the Maduro administration, a charge he refuted.
Following his arrest during a stopover in Cape Verde, Mr. Saab was extradited to the United States in 2021.
In addition, the White House announced that Venezuela has promised to lift the arrest orders for three more Venezuelan citizens and free twenty political detainees, including opposition leader Roberto Abdul.
The US and Venezuela have agreed to prisoner swaps before.
Venezuela released two of Mr. Maduro’s wife’s nephews in return for the release of seven US citizens who were detained in October 2022.
The two men were referred to as the “narco-nephews” and were serving 18-year terms for trying to smuggle cocaine into the US.
When the US decided to lift its sanctions against Venezuela in exchange for President Maduro agreeing to let foreign observers watch the presidential election of the following year, relations between the two nations further improved in October of this year.
However, the US has now reaffirmed its demand that US citizens who were “wrongfully detained” in Venezuela be released, threatening to reimpose sanctions in the event that changes to the situation did not materialize.
In response to the revelation, human rights organizations in Venezuela have called for the release of the over 300 individuals on their list who are political prisoners held in Venezuelan prisons.
