A federal grand jury in Miami on Thursday charged multinational election technology company Smartmatic and several of its top executives with orchestrating a multimillion-dollar bribery and money-laundering scheme.
In 2024, prosecutors charged Roger Alejandro Piñate Martinez and co-defendant Jorge Miguel Vásquez with laundering bribe money tied to inflated voting machine contracts in the Philippines. Prosecutors allege that from 2015 to 2018, Smartmatic executives Martinez and Vasquez funneled at least $1 million in bribes to then Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) chairman Juan Andres Donato Bautista to secure favorable treatment during and after the 2016 Philippine national elections, according to the indictment.
The payments helped Smartmatic obtain contracts, release value-added tax reimbursements, and receive other financial benefits from the Philippine government. Investigators say the defendants financed the bribes by overcharging for voting machines used in the 2016 election, then concealing the illicit payments through fake contracts, coded language, and international bank transfers routed through Asia, Europe, and the United States.
U.S. prosecutors charged SGO Corporation Limited—Smartmatic’s parent company—along with Piñate, Vasquez, Bautista, and Elie Moreno, with conspiracy to commit money laundering and international money laundering. Piñate and Vasquez also face charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
If convicted, the defendants could face up to 20 years in prison on the laundering counts and up to five years for the FCPA violations. Bautista and Moreno remain fugitives. U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida announced the charges, alongside officials from the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Homeland Security Investigations, and the IRS Criminal Investigation unit.
HSI’s El Dorado Task Force in Miami led the investigation, with support from IRS-CI Miami and coordination with Philippine authorities.
In addition to the Philippine bribery case, federal prosecutors in South Florida charged Smartmatic co-founder Piñate with transferring a luxury home in Caracas to Venezuela’s top election official as a bribe. Piñate has been accused of bribing Venezuelan authorities to protect Smartmatic’s business dealings with the Maduro regime.
Smartmatic did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/PBS NewsHour)
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