A retired four-star admiral was arrested on Friday on charges that he took part in a bribery scheme while commanding American naval forces in Europe, Russia and most of Africa, the Justice Department said.

Federal prosecutors said that Robert P. Burke, 62, of Coconut Creek, Fla., who was once the Navy’s second-highest-ranking officer, steered a government contract to a company in exchange for a job at the firm with a yearly base salary of $500,000 and a grant of 100,000 stock options.

The two co-chief executives of the company, Yongchul Kim, 50, who is known as Charlie, and Meghan Messenger, 47, both of New York, were also arrested and charged with taking part in the scheme, the Justice Department said.

The company, which was not named in federal court documents, provided a work force training pilot program to a small part of the Navy from August 2018 through July 2019 until the Navy terminated its contract in late 2019 and directed it not to contact Admiral Burke, the Justice Department said.

Despite the Navy’s instructions, Mr. Kim and Ms. Messenger met with Admiral Burke in Washington in July 2021, and proposed that he steer a work force training contract back to the company, prosecutors said in an indictment.

The executives also proposed that Admiral Burke remain in the Navy for another six months, using his position to influence other senior officers to award a larger training contract to the company, prosecutors said. Mr. Kim estimated that the value of that contract would be in the “triple digit millions,” prosecutors said.