On today's podcast, I'm speaking with an investigative reporter who has been covering the Fat Leonard scandal.

It's a story about how essentially one man, based in Asia, ended up ripping off the US Navy for millions of dollars through a web of corrupt and fraudulent transactions. Craig Whitlock

has been with The Washington Post for almost 20 years. He has reported for more than 60 countries and

has done some of the best reporting on the Fat Leonard's story to date. Thank you for joining me, Craig.

Sure thing. Thanks for having me. In preparing for this podcast, one theme really stuck out. And that was just how brazen the details of

this story are. I guess with financial crime, there's always a component of that, and we'll hear

more about that in some of these other stories. But this story just seems to be worse than most.

Can you just start by telling us a little bit about Fat Leonard, the character

at the heart of this story? Yeah, of course. So Fat Leonard is a nickname for Leonard Glenn Francis,

who is a Malaysian citizen. For years, he ran a family business called Glen Defense Marine Asia.

And in the Navy, it's known as a husbanding service. And that's a Navy

term, meaning they provide services to Navy ships and submarines whenever they go into port,

anywhere in Asia. And these would be services like fuel pumping sewage off a ship,

providing security in port, anything a ship might need

in terms of provisions or equipment or things like that, that the Navy itself isn't in a position

to furnish. This company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, was clamoring for Navy contracts to do

this work throughout Asia and eventually did

it in a huge range from Vladivostok, Russia, down to Australia, and then back west to

Chennai, India.

So they covered really the whole area of operations for the U.S. Navy's seventh fleet, which covers most of the Asia-Pacific region.

So Glenn Defense Marine Asia was a critical supplier to the Navy.

The Navy really couldn't function without a company like that, giving it supplies and fuel throughout Asia.

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