University of Miami professor Bruce Bagley was arrested on Monday, charged with laundering three million dollars.
Professor Bagley allegedly cleaned and helped to distribute approximately three million dollars between November 2017 and April 2019. The newly-laundered money was collected through bribery, as well as a public works project in Venezuela. Prosecutors also claim Bagley pocketed about 10% of the money, around $300,000. He has been charged with two counts of money laundering, and one count of conspiracy.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman said Bagley “opened bank accounts for the express purpose of laundering money for corrupt foreign nationals.” Further, that “the funds Bagley was allegedly laundering were the proceeds of bribery and corruption, stolen from the citizens of Venezuela.”
The 73-year-old international relations professor has been one of the top experts in Latin American organized crime, with a focus on making dirty money untraceable by passing it through multiple sources before it reaches its intended destination “clean” of any pesky paper trails.
“About the only lesson to be learned from Professor Bagley today is that involving oneself in public corruption, bribery, and embezzlement schemes is going to lead to an indictment,” FBI New York Field Office head William F. Sweeney Jr. said in a statement Monday.