A U.S. businessman and CEO from Georgia has been convicted by a federal jury in Miami for his involvement in a bribery and money laundering operation that aimed to secure lucrative contracts in Honduras. Carl Alan Zaglin, 70, from Marietta, was found guilty on Monday of conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), violating the FCPA, and conspiring to commit money laundering, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida.
At the heart of the case, the evidence presented at trial showed Zaglin orchestrated payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to Honduran officials, between March 2015 and November 2019. The purpose of these bribes was to obtain contracts exceeding $10 million with TASA, a Honduran governmental entity in charge of procuring supplies for the nation's police and security agencies. The prosecution argued that these actions presented an unfair advantage in the competitive market and distorted the rule of law.
"Instead of playing by the rules, Carl Zaglin unfairly sought to get ahead and enrich himself by paying bribes to Honduran officials," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. The criminal activities involved using coded language and sham invoices to disguise the illicit payments as legitimate transactions, as noted by the same press release.
Zaglin now faces a potential maximum of five years in prison for each of the FCPA-related counts, and up to 20 years for the money laundering conspiracy charge, a sentence that will be determined by a federal district court judge after considering U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
