On June 24, 2019, Jesus Ramon Veroes and Luis Alberto Chacin Haddad, residents of Venezuela and Florida respectively, each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Veroes and Chacin admitted to conspiring with each other and additional conspirators to bribe Venezuelan officials at the Corporación Eléctrica Nacional, S.A. (Corpoelec) in exchange for contracts between Corpoelec and Florida-based companies. The two men are scheduled to be sentenced in September 2019. As part of their plea agreements, they will each forfeit at least $5.5 million in profits from the corruptly obtained contracts and some real property in the Miami, Florida area.
In a related case, on June 27, 2019, Luis Alfredo Motta Dominguez and Eustiquio Jose Lugo Gomez were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and seven counts of money laundering in connection with the bribes the two individuals received from Veroes and Chacin. The indictment alleges that Motta, who previously served as the Minister of Electrical Energy in Venezuela and the President of Corpoelec, and Lugo, the former director of procurement at Corpoelec, awarded contracts worth over $60 million to three Florida-based companies in exchange for bribes from Veroes and Chacin.