Dozens of U.S. Navy officials have admitted to being bought off by a gregarious, rotund Malaysian defense contractor known as “Fat Leonard” who plied them with prostitutes, Cuban cigars and free stays at the Philippines’ Shangri-La hotel among other things
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“You would expect that one of the largest corruption scandals in the history of the United States Navy would provoke pretty dramatic changes to prevent something like this from happening again in the future. But sadly, that’s not really the case,” said Dan Grazier, a former Marine who now works as a military analyst at the Project on Government Oversight in Washington.
Prosecutors say Francis and his company overcharged the U.S. military by more than $35 million for its services between 2004 and 2013, which included providing food and water to the ships at Pacific ports in Asia. Navy officials vowed to clean up their contracting processes in response to the scandal and implemented more oversight. Sailors received more ethics training. Supply officers have less independence. Goods and services now must be priced at current market rates as determined by the Navy’s Fleet Logistics Centers.
“They think they’re signing up for something really noble, and then they see all these people that they’re supposed to look up to behaving in such an unethical and often times illegal fashion,” Grazier said. “That’s hugely crushing for these young idealists. I think that’s one of the biggest tragedies of all this.”
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