The USS Blue Ridge plays a crucial role in national security. It is the flagship for the Navy’s 7th Fleet and oversees all U.S. maritime operations in Asia and the western Pacific. The warship is the Navy’s second-oldest active-duty vessel. It has been through a lot: the Vietnam War, the Cold War and tensions with China and North Korea. But, The Washington Post writes, for many years, there has been one foreign threat against which Blue Ridge proved utterly defenseless: a 6-foot-3, 350-pound tugboat owner known as “Fat Leonard.” For the better part of a decade, as part of a massive scam to defraud the Navy, Leonard Glenn Francis, a Singapore-based tycoon who held lucrative contracts to service Navy ships and submarines in Asian ports, systemically infiltrated the Blue Ridge. In a case that ranks as the worst corruption scandal in Navy history, the Justice Department charged 15 officers and one enlisted sailor with taking bribes or lying about their connections to Francis. According to prosecutors, nine sailors from the 7th Fleet flagship leaked classified information about ship movements and other secrets to Francis. Francis dolled out illicit gifts, hosted feasts and sponsored sex parties for Blue Ridge personnel on at least 45 occasions between 2006 and 2013. The Blue Ridge is perhaps the most widely compromised U.S. military headquarters of the modern era. The Navy is now investigating dozens of others who served on the ship.
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