A Miami-area college professor who wrote a book about illegal drug trafficking turned his expertise to crime as part of a scheme to wash corrupt cash from Venezuela, prosecutors said.
Bruce Bagley, 73, who teaches international studies and wrote “Drug Trafficking, Organized Crime, and Violence in the Americas Today,” was charged with laundering about $2.5 million from Venezuelan corruption and bribery between November 2017 and October 2018.
He faces as long as 20 years in prison if convicted of charges filed in Manhattan federal court on Monday.
Prosecutors claim Bagley opened bank accounts using a company he owned, taking in payments from bank accounts located in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates, which were held by an unnamed Colombian. They say he would withdraw 90% of the money in the form of cashier’s checks payable to an account held by an unnamed person. Bagley would keep the rest of the money, they said.
Prosecutors claim Bagley was informed the money was the proceeds of bribery and corruption. He’s charged with two counts of money laundering and a single count of conspiracy.
Read the prosecutors’ statement and indictment here
The case is U.S. v. Bagley, 19-cr-00765, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.