Schield said the Marshals Service is a relatively small federal agency, and when it’s looking for someone internationally, it relies on many different partners, including foreign law enforcement agencies, the U.S. Schield said that would have happened through a protocol known as an Interpol diffusion and later a more formal “red notice,” signifying a wanted person. investigation.Ĭastillo, the Marshals Service supervisory deputy, said Monday that alerts about Francis had gone out to international border crossings and airports once the marshals took on the case. And the podcast host reported that the Chinese government hacked a Chinese server where Francis moved his files to conceal them from a U.S.
In a podcast he secretly recorded while under home arrest, Francis claimed that Chinese and Russian diplomats had courted him in Singapore. That could be especially concerning given that Francis regularly trafficked in Navy secrets, and claimed to have comprising evidence that included surreptitiously recorded sex tapes of Navy officers. “Hopefully it never has to get to that point.” “If that were to happen, it would be up to the attorney general and some very high-level diplomatic coordination,” Schield said. The worst case scenario, according to Schield, would be that Francis seeks refuge in China. Other Southeast Asian countries without extradition treaties include Brunei, Laos and Vietnam. But the best way is to try to quickly find him in a third country where we have a good relationship and can quickly use immigration laws to coordinate his expulsion back to the United States.” “If he goes to his native Malaysia, we can request the formal extradition through our treaty. “That becomes a real problem” if he goes to a country without a U.S. He pleaded guilty in 2015 to bribery and defrauding the Navy out of at least $35 million, then flipped on the officers with whom he had once partied and boozed, becoming a cooperating witness for prosecutors. “Somebody knows where the mom is, where the kids are.”įrancis was arrested in 2013 in San Diego as part of a federal sting operation. “Somebody knows where this guy is,” Schield said. “The key to any fugitive investigation is to talk to people,” said Schield, who worked 20 years as a deputy marshal in San Diego, including about six years in the late 1990s and early 2000s heading the San Diego Regional Fugitive Task Force - the group now leading the search for Francis.
Neighbors reported seeing moving trucks at the home that same week. Sometime in the leadup to Labor Day weekend, they left the home and did not return.
But he confirmed Francis has “gone international” and fled the country “right away.”Ĭastillo said Francis’ mother and three of his children had been living with him at his rented multimillion-dollar home in the Torrey Highlands gated community of Collins Ranch. Marshals Service, would not say how Francis got out of the U.S. Omar Castillo, a supervisory deputy of the San Diego-area U.S. “Fugitive hunting itself is difficult, when it becomes international, I think the difficulty is doubled,” said Armenta, who is now a private investigator.
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