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Bruce Bagley, a University of Miami professor who specializes in corruption in Latin America, has effectively been accused of switching sides by federal prosecutors in New York, who on Monday charged him with laundering millions of dollars embezzled from Venezuela.

Bagley, 73, who has also authored books on drug trafficking and was previously interviewed by ACAMS moneylaundering.com, took a “commission” of around 10 percent to transfer as much as $3 million to the U.S. for a Colombian national tied to the embezzlement, according to a 12-page indictment unsealed in Manhattan.

Bagley received the sum in 14 wires from two bank accounts—one in Switzerland and the other in the United Arab Emirates—all while knowing that the funds came from “graft and corruption in connection with public works projects in Venezuela,” prosecutors claimed in the indictment.

The scheme, according to the indictment, began in November 2016, when Bagley opened an account at an unspecified bank in Weston, Florida, under the name of a firm he and his spouse had registered in the state 11 years prior.

Prosecutors said the account was virtually dormant until November 2017, when it received the first of four monthly deposits of $200,000 from a food company in the United Arab Emirates.

After each deposit, Bagley and an unnamed co-conspirator allegedly visited a branch of the bank in Weston and followed “a set pattern” of writing a cashier’s check of around $180,000 to a different firm and transferring the remaining $20,000 to “a personal account.”

The second company was controlled by the unidentified co-conspirator who allegedly visited the branch with Bagley, but a Colombian national, the suspect who originally obtained the funds through bribery and embezzlement, was the check’s true beneficiary, according to the indictment.

The scheme continued in March 2018, when the Colombian national wired Bagley the first of eight transfers from a Swiss account ostensibly controlled by an Emirati investment fund, according to prosecutors. That second series of transfers totaled $1.1 million, of which Bagley allegedly kept $92,000.

Bagley’s bank interrupted the scheme in October 2018 by closing his account in response to “suspicious activity,” prompting the professor to open an account under his own name at a second bank in Florida, where, according to the indictment, he received roughly $250,000 in January, and another $250,000 in February.

“Bagley entered into multiple sham contracts purporting to justify the transfer of money into his account in the course of the money laundering conspiracy,” prosecutors wrote.

Bagley, who resides in Coral Gables, is an international studies professor who has given interviews on financial crime and drug trafficking on several occasions, including twice to moneylaundering.com—most recently in September 2015.

He did not respond to requests for comment Monday. A University of Miami spokesman told moneylaundering.com after the indictment that he had been placed on leave.

Bagley’s alleged scheme, which involved consistent, high-value payments from high-risk jurisdictions that continued even after the purported source of funds switched from a food company to an investment firm, would have drawn attention from bank compliance, said Alison Jimenez, president of the Florida-based consultancy Dynamic Securities Analytics.

Bagley’s alleged use of a company registered in his own name and repeated visits to bank branches with one of his purported customers in tow would also have raised red flags, Jimenez said.

“I’m surprised it wasn’t a more sophisticated scheme given his alleged expertise,” said Jimenez. “He did not do a great job of removing himself from the situation … it might have been hard to ignore.”

Contact Daniel Bethencourt at dbethencourt@acams.org