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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Edward Helmore

Whiskey, Kobe beef and suckling pig: inside the ‘Fat Leonard’ navy bribery scandal

US Navy taken on August 28, 2022 the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville (CG 62) transits the East China Sea in the Taiwan Strait during routine underway operations.
In 2011, Francis’s company was awarded contracts worth $200m to service ships at ports in south-east Asia. Photograph: Justin Stack/US Navy/AFP/Getty Images

Leonard Glenn Francis, known as “Fat Leonard”, skipped house arrest on Monday and has, in all probability, crossed the US-Mexico border and is trying to make his way to Asia.

Francis, who was due to be sentenced after pleading guilty to a decades-long military contractor fraud scheme, has left behind a headache for the US navy, and for the military broadly, in mounting foreign operations.

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