KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 20): Malaysian national Leonard Glenn Francis, a military contractor better known as Fat Leonard, who has been on the run since Sept 4 after cutting off his GPS monitoring ankle bracelet, has allegedly made it to Venezuela and may be headed to Brazil.

American journalists Tom Wright and Bradley Hope through their global journalism and production studio Project Brazen said that they had 'information' on Francis being in the country after he cut off his GPS monitoring ankle bracelet and fled house arrest in San Diego, California.

Francis currently has a US$40,000 bounty on his head by the US Marshals Service.

Francis was arrested in San Diego in 2013 and pleaded guilty in 2015, admitting to bribing numerous high-ranking naval officers and swindling the Navy out of at least US$35 million in overcharges.

He was alleged to have bribed a large number of uniformed officers of the US Seventh Fleet with at least a half million dollars in cash, plus travel expenses, luxury items, and prostitutes, in return for classified material about the movements of US ships and submarines, confidential contracting information, and information about active law enforcement investigations into Glenn Defense Marine Asia.

Francis then "exploited the intelligence for illicit profit, brazenly ordering his moles to redirect aircraft carriers to ports he controlled in Southeast Asia so he could more easily bilk the Navy for fuel, tugboats, barges, food, water and sewage removal".