– President Of Voting Machine Giant Smartmatic Indicted On $1 Million Bribery, Money Laundering Charges:
The founder and president of Smartmatic – the company whose voting machines and software are ‘trusted’ around the world to provide secure elections – was indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday along with two other company officials on charges involving a bribery and money-laundering scheme used to secure elections contracts in the Philippines.
Roger Piñate, 49, of Boca Ratón Florida, along with Jorge Miguel Vasquez, 62, of Davie, were among those charged over the alleged payment of $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,” according to a press release from the US Department of Justice.
According to the indictment, the alleged co-conspirators financed the bribes by over-invoicing the cost per voting machine used in the elections. To hide their crime, prosecutors say they used coded language to refer to a slush fund used to make the illicit payments – causing the creation of fraudulent contracts and fake loan agreements to make the transfers appear legitimate.
The defendants then allegedly laundered the funds related to the bribery scheme via a constellation of international bank accounts in Asia, Europe and the United States – including in the Southern District of Florida.
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