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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLeaks, feasts and sex parties: How Fat Leonard infiltrated the Navy's floating headquarters
Leaks, feasts and sex parties: How Fat Leonard infiltrated the Navys floating headquarters in Asia
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/leaks-feasts-and-sex-parties-how-fat-leonard-infiltrated-the-navys-floating-headquarters-in-asia/2018/01/23/4d31555c-efdd-11e7-97bf-bba379b809ab_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_blueridge-804am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.2081ed4502ff
As the flagship for the Navys 7th Fleet, the USS Blue Ridge plays a critical role in national security by overseeing all U.S. maritime operations in Asia and the western Pacific. The venerable warship is the Navys second-oldest active-duty vessel and has survived the Vietnam War, the Cold War and tensions with China and North Korea.
But there is one foreign threat against which the Blue Ridge proved utterly defenseless for many years: a 6-foot-3, 350-pound tugboat owner known as Fat Leonard.
In a case that ranks as the worst corruption scandal in Navy history, the Justice Department has charged 15 officers and one enlisted sailor who served on the Blue Ridge with taking bribes from or lying about their ties to Leonard Glenn Francis, a Singapore-based tycoon who held lucrative contracts to service Navy ships and submarines in Asian ports.
For the better part of a decade, as part of a massive scam to defraud the Navy, Francis systematically infiltrated the Blue Ridge to a degree that is only now coming into focus, more than four years after the defense contractors arrest, according to the documents from federal court and the Navy, as well as interviews with Navy officials and associates of Francis.
Prosecutors say nine sailors from the 7th Fleet flagship leaked classified information about ship movements and other secrets to Francis, a Malaysian citizen, making the Blue Ridge perhaps the most widely compromised U.S. military headquarters of the modern era.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/leaks-feasts-and-sex-parties-how-fat-leonard-infiltrated-the-navys-floating-headquarters-in-asia/2018/01/23/4d31555c-efdd-11e7-97bf-bba379b809ab_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_blueridge-804am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.2081ed4502ff
As the flagship for the Navys 7th Fleet, the USS Blue Ridge plays a critical role in national security by overseeing all U.S. maritime operations in Asia and the western Pacific. The venerable warship is the Navys second-oldest active-duty vessel and has survived the Vietnam War, the Cold War and tensions with China and North Korea.
But there is one foreign threat against which the Blue Ridge proved utterly defenseless for many years: a 6-foot-3, 350-pound tugboat owner known as Fat Leonard.
In a case that ranks as the worst corruption scandal in Navy history, the Justice Department has charged 15 officers and one enlisted sailor who served on the Blue Ridge with taking bribes from or lying about their ties to Leonard Glenn Francis, a Singapore-based tycoon who held lucrative contracts to service Navy ships and submarines in Asian ports.
For the better part of a decade, as part of a massive scam to defraud the Navy, Francis systematically infiltrated the Blue Ridge to a degree that is only now coming into focus, more than four years after the defense contractors arrest, according to the documents from federal court and the Navy, as well as interviews with Navy officials and associates of Francis.
Prosecutors say nine sailors from the 7th Fleet flagship leaked classified information about ship movements and other secrets to Francis, a Malaysian citizen, making the Blue Ridge perhaps the most widely compromised U.S. military headquarters of the modern era.
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Leaks, feasts and sex parties: How Fat Leonard infiltrated the Navy's floating headquarters (Original Post)
IronLionZion
Feb 2018
OP
hatrack
(59,592 posts)1. Wow . . . just . . . wow . . .
Thanks for the link, ILZ!
IronLionZion
(45,534 posts)2. Yeah, but those people on food stamps
that's who are really going to get punished for wasting taxpayer money.
Asked whether he or other senior Navy leaders should have detected what was going on, he paused.
I dont know how to answer that, he said. Most of us, we spend our lives, you see something wrong, you take action. The other side of the coin is that you trust people.
I dont know how to answer that, he said. Most of us, we spend our lives, you see something wrong, you take action. The other side of the coin is that you trust people.
MineralMan
(146,331 posts)3. Very interesting.
I'll be watching to see how this turns out.
d_r
(6,907 posts)4. five 7th fleet crashes
could they be related to this somehow?
http://abcnews.go.com/US/us-warship-collides-japanese-tug-boat-latest-mishap/story?id=51242298
A U.S. warship collided with a Japanese commercial tug boat in Japan's Sagami Bay on Saturday, marking the fifth time this year that a ship in the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet in the Pacific has been involved in a crash.