Money Laundering Experts Gets Jail Time for Moving Stolen Venezuelan Funds

(Bloomberg) -- A Miami professor who’s an expert in Latin American crime and money laundering was sentenced in New York to six months behind bars for illegally moving more than $2 million in a Venezuelan bribery and corruption scheme.

Bruce Bagley, 75, was a professor of international studies at the University of Miami, where he wrote about drug trafficking and international organized crime. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff on Tuesday after pleading guilty to laundering money from Alex Saab, an ally of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Last month, Saab was extradited from Cape Verde to the U.S. to face money laundering charges in Florida. 

Bagley admitted making more than $200,000 in the scheme from 2017 to 2019. The judge pointed to Bagley’s expertise in the topic of international money laundering in rejecting his pleas to avoid prison.

“Of all the people in the world, Dr. Bagley was most able to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct,” Rakoff said in Manhattan federal court. “And that can not go unpunished.”

Saab, a Columbian businessman, is charged with laundering the proceeds of Venezuelan corruption. He has pleaded not guilty.

The case is U.S. v. Bagley, 19-cr-00765, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

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