The Venezuelan-American founder of voting machine company Smartmatic has been indicted by a grand jury on charges relating to an alleged scheme involving the election technology.
The grand jury’s Thursday decision in the Southern District of Florida means executive Roger Pinate, 49, is now charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of international laundering of monetary instruments.
Pinate is a co-founder and president of Smartmatic.
Alleged co-conspirators 62-year-old Jorge Vasquez, 44-year-old Elie Moreno and the former Philippines’ Commission on Elections Chairman Juan Andres Donato Bautista each face the same charges.
In addition, Pinate and Vasquez face counts of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, Pinate, Vasquez and Moreno are alleged to have caused more than $1 million in bribes to be paid to 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,” the DOJ said in a release, “including the release of value added tax payments.”
The DOJ explains the apparent scheme worked by overcharging the Philippine taxpayer for voting machines, and hiding the ill-gotten gains by laundering it through banks worldwide, including at least one in the Southern District of Florida.
“The co-conspirators allegedly funded the bribes through a slush fund that was created by over-invoicing the cost per voting machine for the 2016 Philippine elections,” the DOJ said.
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The government branch added: “To conceal and disguise the nature and purpose of the corrupt payments, the co-conspirators used coded language to refer to the slush fund and caused the creation of fraudulent contracts and sham loan agreements to justify transfers.”
Conspirators allegedly used banks in Asia, Europe and the United States to “clean” money from the Philippine scheme.
The accused face 20 years in prison for each of the laundering and conspiracy charges, with Pinate and Vasquez face an additional five years for their FCPA counts.
A Homeland Security task force, working alongside the IRS, is spearheading the investigation.
Shortly after the indictment, Smartmatic released a statement announcing the charged employees are now on leave and rejecting any claim of voter fraud.
“Voters worldwide must be assured that the elections they participate in are conducted with the utmost integrity and transparency,” the company wrote on X. “These are the values that Smartmatic lives by.”
Smartmatic has learned that two of our employees have been indicted for alleged violations of the FCPA in the Philippines almost 10 years ago. Regardless of the veracity of the allegations and while our accused employees remain innocent until proven guilty, we have placed both… pic.twitter.com/ZGFVXgh5XX
— Smartmatic (@smartmatic) August 9, 2024
International cooperation is underway between law enforcement and investigative agencies to bring a successful prosecution in this case.
