On August 8, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that three executives of an unnamed election voting machine and related services provider and the former Chairman of the Commission on Elections (“COMELEC”) of the Republic of the Philippines, Juan Andres Donato Bautista, were indicted by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida for their alleged roles in a bribery and money laundering scheme. News reports have widely identified the unnamed voting machine company as Smartmatic and certain of its affiliates. According to the indictment, the Smartmatic executives caused at least $1 million in bribes to be paid to Bautista between 2015 and 2018 in order to obtain and retain contracts to provide voting machines and related services for the May 2016 Philippine elections. In addition to Bautista, the indictment identifies the three other charged individuals as Roger Alejandro Piñate Martinez, a Florida resident and Venezuelan citizen who was a co-founder of Smartmatic, as well as its Chief Operating Officer and President; Jorge Miguel Vasquez, a Florida resident and U.S. citizen, who managed hardware development and manufacturing for Smartmatic; and Elie Moreno, a dual citizen of Venezuela and Israel, who managed Smartmatic’s contracts with COMELEC.
According to the indictment, COMELEC awarded three contracts to Smartmatic worth approximately $182 million in connection with the 2016 election. The indictment further alleges that Piñate and Vasquez conspired to bribe and did bribe Bautista in order to receive these contracts. The bribes were allegedly made through a slush fund created by over-invoicing or inflating the cost per voting machine provided, and Piñate and Vasquez allegedly attempted to justify the payments by creating fraudulent contracts and sham loan agreements. The indictment also states that the two used personal email accounts and WhatsApp to communicate in an attempt to hide the misconduct.
The indictment describes Moreno’s participation in the alleged conspiracy, but does not charge him with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or conspiring to violate the FCPA. Bautista is not charged with FCPA violations as the law only punishes the giving or offering of bribes, not the receipt of bribes. All four defendants were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and three counts of money laundering in connection with the wire transfers of alleged bribe funds.
DOJ Press Release | Indictment | Affidavit in Support of Criminal Complaint