4 Charged Under FCPA in Plot to Bribe Philippine Officials for Use of Voting Machines
Three election voting machine and service provider company executives, along with a former chairman of the Philippines' Commission on Elections, were charged with bribing officials in the Philippines to retain business in the 2016 Philippines elections, DOJ announced. A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida returned an indictment against the four men Aug. 8, charging two of them with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and violating the FCPA.
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From 2015 to 2018, two Florida residents, Venezuela citizen Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez of Boca Raton and U.S. citizen Jorge Miguel Vasquez of Davie with others "allegedly caused at least $1 million in bribes to be paid" to Juan Andres Donato Bautista, former chairman of the Commission on Elections. The money allegedly was used to secure the use of the men's voting machines in the 2016 Philippine elections.
The bribes were allegedly paid from a slush fund created by "over-invoicing the cost per voting machine" for the elections. To hide the payments, the defendants used "coded language to refer to the slush fund and caused the creation of fraudulent contracts and sham loan agreements to justify transfers," DOJ said. The funds were allegedly laundered through bank accounts in Asia, Europe and the U.S.
Pinante and Vasquez were charged with violating the FCPA, while Bautista, Pinate, Vasquez and dual Venezuelan-Israeli citizen Elie Moreno were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and "international laundering of monetary instruments."