Afederal grand jury on Thursday indicted voting-machine company Smartmatic’s president and founder Roger Piñate on bribery and money-laundering charges in order to get election contracts in the Philippines.
Smartmatic’s voting machines have been used in Venezuelan and Philippine presidential elections, and was founded in 2000, but didn’t take off until the Venezuelan election in 2004, when Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez chose the company to replace the country’s previous machines, according to the Miami Herald.
Piñate, along with alleged co-conspirators Jorge Miguel Vasquez, and Elie Moreno, have been accused of giving former chairman of the Philippines’ Commission on Elections Juan Andres Donato Bautista $1 million in bribes to secure the contracts.
“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,” the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday, the outlet reported.
The alleged co-conspirators were able to pay the bribes by over-invoicing the cost of each voting machine in the election, and hid the payments by using coded words to refer to the accounts that contained the funds. They also created fraudulent contracts and fake loan agreements to justify the transfer of large sums.
Piñate, Moreno, Vasquez, and Bautista have all been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and three counts of international laundering of monetary instruments. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison for each charge.
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