Picture of the logo of Smartmatic, the firm that supplies Venezuela’s voting technology, seen on a sliding door at the headquarters of the company in Caracas, on Aug. 2, 2017. (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images/TNS)
MIAMI (Tribune News Service) — A federal grand jury in South Florida on Thursday indicted Venezuelan-American executive Roger Piñate, founder and president of the voting-machine company Smartmatic, on charges of involving a bribery and money-laundering scheme used to secure elections contracts in the Philippines.
According to federal prosecutors Piñate, 49, a Boca Ratón resident, along with Jorge Miguel Vasquez, 62, of Davie, and others others were involved in the payment of a $1 million in bribes to the former chairman of the Philippines’ Commission on Elections, Juan Andres Donato Bautista.
“These bribes were allegedly paid to obtain and retain business related to providing voting machines and election services for the 2016 Philippine elections and to secure payments on the contracts, including the release of value added tax payments,” the U.S. Justice Department said in a press release.
Officials said the alleged co-conspirators financed the bribes by over-invoicing the cost per voting machine for the elections. To conceal the operation, the co-conspirators used coded language to refer to the slush fund used to make the illicit payments and caused the creation of fraudulent contracts and sham loan agreements to justify transfers, the Justice Department said.
The co-conspirators then allegedly laundered funds related to the bribery scheme through bank accounts located in Asia, Europe, and the United States, including in the Southern District of Florida, the department added.
Bautista, Piñate, Vasquez, and Elie Moreno, 44, a dual citizen of Venezuela and Israel, are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and three counts of international laundering of monetary instruments.
If convicted, Bautista, Pinate, Vasquez and Moreno each face a maximum penalty of 20 years for each count of international laundering of monetary instruments and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Piñate, alongside Venezuelans Antonio Mugica and Alfredo José Anzola, founded Smartmatic in 2000, and gained notoriety after the company was chosen by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez to replace the country’s voting machines in 2004. The company grew by acquiring the much larger Sequoia Voting Systems in 2006, though the company later announced that it had divested its stake in that company.
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