Korean Fat Leonard? Feds Probe New US Navy Corruption Case In Asia

David B. Larter at the Defense News offers a piece on another U.S. Navy corruption case.

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department has filed corruption charges against the head of a Busan, Korea,-based husbanding services provider in a case with unmistakable echoes of the Fat Leonard scandal that has rocked the Navy since the investigation was revealed in 2013. 

Sung-Yol “David” Kim, head of DK Marine Service, has been charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of bribery, according to documents filed with the Eastern District of Michigan. 

The investigation has already netted the former civilian master of the dry cargo ship Charles Drew, a Military Sealift Command ship that operates in the Pacific. James Driver pled guilty July 16 to one count of conspiracy, according to court documents, and is awaiting sentencing. 

It’s unclear how deep the alleged fraud ran but it is clear that, DK Marine Services performed extensive work for both Military Sealift Command and US Navy assets, including the carriers Reagan and George Washington, the minesweeper Chief, the destroyer Sterett and numerous other support ships, according to images posted on DK Marine Service’s website. 

The news that another husbanding services provider in Asia is at the center of a federal corruption case is a hammer-blow to the Navy, which has been struggling for years as dozens of its officers, including several senior leaders, have come under scrutiny for their dealings with Glenn Defense Marine Asia and its gregarious, corpulent chief executive Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis.  

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/07/30/korean-fat-leonard-feds-probe-new-us-navy-corruption-case-in-asia/

Note: The USNS Charles Drew resupplies the French destroyer Jean Bart in the Atlantic Ocean in May. The former civilian master of the Drew is at the center of a Federal corruption probe surrounding a husbanding services provider in Busan, Korea. (U.S. Navy photo by MCSN Jeffery Southerland).

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on the “Fat Leonard” U.S. Navy fraud and bribery case via the below link: 

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2017/03/my-piece-on-fat-leonard-us-navy-bribery.html