A federal grand jury has indicted Smartmatic CEO Roger Piñate and a Smartmatic vice president with crimes concerning foreign corruption in the Philippines.
The Department of Justice announcement of the indictment does not mention Smartmatic by name. The first three paragraphs of the announcement follow, with the full text available here:
A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida returned an indictment today charging three executives of an election voting machine and service provider company and a former Chairman of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) of the Republic of the Philippines for their roles in an alleged bribery and money laundering scheme to retain and obtain business related to the 2016 Philippine elections.
According to the indictment, between 2015 and 2018, Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez, 49, a Venezuelan citizen and resident of Boca Raton, Florida, and Jorge Miguel Vasquez, 62, a U.S. citizen and resident of Davie, Florida, together with others, allegedly caused at least $1 million in bribes to be paid to Juan Andres Donato Bautista, 60, the former Chairman of COMELEC. 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 co-conspirators allegedly funded the bribes through a slush fund that was created by over-invoicing the cost per voting machine for the 2016 Philippine elections. To conceal and disguise the nature and purpose of the corrupt payments, the co-conspirators used coded language to refer to the slush fund and caused the creation of fraudulent contracts and sham loan agreements to justify transfers. The co-conspirators then allegedly laundered funds related to the bribery scheme through bank accounts located in Asia, Europe, and the United States, including in the Southern District of Florida.
Source:
1. Smartmatic-venezuela-election-voting-machines
2. Four Men Charged in Philippine Bribery and Money Laundering Scheme
1. While the American system presumes innocent until proven guilty, from a counterintelligence and common sense perspective, does this indictment of Smartmatic executives make sense given the public information available?
2. Why was this indictment from a federal grand jury, and not from the Department of Justice?
3. Was the FBI even aware of the grand jury investigation or the facts behind it?
4. Why were Smartmatic executives, but not the company itself, criminally charged?
5. Should we anticipate more criminal prosecutions?
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