MIAMI–A University of Miami professor who is recognized as an international scholar on drug cartels and money laundering has pleaded guilty to two counts of, yes, money laundering.
Professor Bruce Bagley pleaded guilty after being charged with using bank accounts in his name and in the name of a company he created in Florida to launder over $2 million in proceeds from a Venezuelan bribery and corruption scheme.
Bagley pleaded not guilty soon after his arrest in November 2019 in the New York case linked to South Florida, but filed a notice in March indicating that he planned to change his plea.
“Bruce Bagley (…) went from writing the book on crime — literally writing a book on drug trafficking and organized crime — to committing crimes,” Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in a released statement. “Professor Bagley admitted today to laundering money for corrupt foreign nationals — the proceeds of bribery and corruption, stolen from the citizens of Venezuela. Bagley now faces the possibility of a long tenure in prison.”
The sentencing hearing for the 73-year-old professor was set for Oct. 1. Each money-laundering count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, according to prosecutors.
Author of Several Books
Prosecutors said Bagley — author of several books, including “Drug Trafficking, Organized Crime, and Violence in the Americas Today,” received monthly deposits of approximately $200,000 from Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates into the bank account of the company he had created, according to court documents.
The U.S. Attorney said Bagley would then withdraw approximately 90% of the funds in the form of a cashier’s check, payable to an account held by another individual, and send the remainder of the funds to his personal account. Between November 2017 and October 2018, his company’s bank account received approximately $2.5 million from the overseas accounts, according to prosecutors.
‘A Fee for Himself’
“Federal prosecutors say Bagley, who was often quoted by the news media on subjects ranging from violent drug traffickers in Mexico to guerrilla politics in Colombia, parlayed his mastery of Latin American crime into a secret side job and kept about $300,000 as a fee for himself,” the Miami Herald reported.
According to the New York indictment, the illicit funds were diverted from a food company controlled by a Colombian individual into Bagley’s South Florida bank accounts as a consultant.