International Crime Scholar Pleads Guilty in Money-Laundering Case
A identified global scholar on drug cartels and money laundering has pleaded guilty to money laundering more than his involvement in a Venezuelan bribery and corruption plan.
Bruce Bagley, a professor at the College of Miami, admitted that, involving November 2017 and October 2018, his company’s lender account received somewhere around $two.5 million from the abroad accounts controlled by a sanctioned Columbian businessman.
Bagley was arrested in November 2019 and pleaded not guilty at the time however, he submitted a recognize in March indicating that he prepared to alter his plea.
He is the creator of the book “Drug Trafficking, Organized Crime, and Violence in the Americas Today.”
“Bruce Bagley … went from creating the book on crime — virtually creating a book on drug trafficking and organized crime — to committing crimes,” the United States Lawyer for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, reported in a press launch. “Professor Bagley admitted right now to laundering money for corrupt overseas nationals — the proceeds of bribery and corruption, stolen from the citizens of Venezuela. Bagley now faces the chance of a extended tenure in prison.”
According to court docket files, Bagley received monthly payments from a corrupt meals firm operate by a Columbian businessman, considering that discovered as Alex Saab. Bagley transferred the money to lender accounts controlled by a U.S. regulation enforcement informant, Jorge Luis Hernandez, while preserving a share for himself.
Saab was sanctioned very last calendar year by the U.S. Treasury Division allegedly profiting from a no-bid agreement to import meals to Venezuela. He was indicted in Miami in July for laundering money linked to a general public housing software in Venezuela.
“I should really have understood that the money involved had been proceeds of illegal activity,” Bagley reported in a federal court docket listening to.
Bagley has been on administrative leave at the College of Miami considering that very last slide.
His sentencing is scheduled for October 1.
