Leonard Francis, who goes by the nickname “Fat Leonard,” was arrested on an Interpol red alert at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas while boarding a flight to Cuba, the U.S. Marshals Service told CBS News.
Leonard was under house arrest in San Diego and was just days away from being sentenced when he cut his ankle bracelet in early September and fled.
U.S. Marshals believed Leonard had fled south to Mexico after his tracking bracelet was cut off.
Francis was first arrested in San Diego in 2013 and pleaded guilty in 2015 to offering $500,000 in bribes to Navy officers. In return, the officers gave him classified information and even went so far as to divert military vessels to ports that were lucrative for his Singapore-based shipping company. Francis, according to prosecutors, overbilled the US military by $35 million for his company’s services.
Under the 2015 plea agreement, Francis identified seven Navy officials who had accepted bribes and admitted paying officials hundreds of thousands in cash, as well as luxury goods worth millions. He supplied them with prostitutes and Cuban cigars, luxury travel, Spanish suckling pigs and Kobe beef. According to court documents, employees received spa treatments, top-shelf liquor, designer handbags, leather goods, designer furniture, watches, pens, decorative swords and handmade model ships.
More than 30 Navy officers and contractors have either been convicted or pleaded guilty to charges related to Francis’ service.
At times weighing over 400 pounds, Francis was colloquially known as “Fat Leonard.”
Francis has been under house arrest since at least 2018 and under the supervision of a federal agency, Pre-Trial Services, which monitors out-of-custody defendants until sentencing. Before his disappearance, he was scheduled to be sentenced in late September and faced up to 25 years in prison.
