United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida

09/15/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/15/2025 15:07

CEO of Georgia Company Convicted in International Bribery and Money Laundering Scheme

Press Release

CEO of Georgia Company Convicted in International Bribery and Money Laundering Scheme

Monday, September 15, 2025
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For Immediate Release
Office of Public Affairs

A federal jury in Miami, Florida, convicted a U.S. businessman today for his role in a nearly five-year long scheme to bribe Honduran government officials and to launder money to secure business for a Georgia-based manufacturer of law enforcement uniforms and accessories.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Carl Alan Zaglin, 70, of Marietta, Georgia, agreed to pay bribes to Honduran officials in order to obtain and retain business with Comité Técnico del Fideicomiso para la Administración del Fondo de Protección y Seguridad Poblacional (TASA), a Honduran governmental entity that procured goods for the Honduran National Police and other Honduran security agencies.

"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. "Bribing government officials to win business undermines the rule of law and distorts competitive markets. Today's verdict reaffirms the Criminal Division's commitment to rooting out corruption and providing an equal playing field for American businesses."

The trial evidence showed that, between March 2015 and November 2019, Zaglin, the owner and CEO of Atlanco LLC (Atlanco), orchestrated the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to Honduran officials - including former TASA Executive Director Francisco Roberto Cosenza Centeno (Cosenza) and former TASA Titular Director Juan Ramon Molina - in order to secure contracts with TASA worth more than $10 million. The bribes were paid through Aldo Nestor Marchena, a third-party intermediary then residing in Boca Raton, Florida, who received $2.5 million in payments pursuant to sham invoices authorized by Zaglin. In exchange for the bribes, Cosenza and other Honduran government officials assisted Zaglin, Marchena and others in obtaining contracts for the sale of uniforms and other goods for the Honduran National Police and securing payment on the contracts. Marchena, Cosenza, and Molina all previously pleaded guilty for their roles in the scheme.

To conceal the scheme, Zaglin, Marchena, Cosenza, and their co-conspirators used coded and oblique language like "commissions" and "fees" to refer to bribes and "Miami" to refer to Marchena, "the guys" and "the others" to refer to foreign officials, sham "Brokerage Agreements" falsely detailing legitimate services, and they communicated using personal email accounts and encrypted messaging applications. The conspirators laundered the bribes by moving funds from Atlanco to Marchena's front company in the United States to accounts held for the benefit of Honduran officials in the United States, Belize, and elsewhere.

The jury convicted Zaglin of one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), one count of violating the FCPA, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison on both the FCPA count and the FCPA conspiracy count, and a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the money laundering conspiracy count. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Charges in the form of a criminal indictment against Zaglin, Marchena, and Cosenza were unsealed on Dec. 20, 2023. Marchena and Cosenza previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering on June 5, 2025 and Aug. 13, 2025, respectively. Molina pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering on Dec. 11, 2024.

The Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Miami Field Office investigated the case. The Justice Department's Office of International Affairs and authorities in Belize, Colombia, and Spain provided assistance with the investigation.

Trial Attorneys Peter L. Cooch and Clayton P. Solomon of the Criminal Division's Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Eli S. Rubin for the Southern District of Florida are prosecuting the case.

The Criminal Division's Fraud Section is responsible for investigating and prosecuting FCPA and Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA) matters. Additional information about the Justice Department's FCPA and FEPA enforcement efforts can be found at https://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa.

Updated September 15, 2025
Topic
Financial Fraud
Components
Criminal Division
Criminal - Criminal Fraud Section
Criminal - Office of International Affairs
USAO - Florida, Southern
Press Release Number:25-951
United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida published this content on September 15, 2025, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on September 15, 2025 at 21:07 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]