Election service provider Smartmatic executives, including its president Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez, a Venezuelan citizen and resident of Boca Raton, Florida, and Jorge Miguel Vasquez, a U.S. citizen and resident of Davie, Florida, allegedly paid at least $1 million to former Philippines' Commission on Elections (COMELEC) Chairman Juan Andres Donato Bautista to ensure that they would be awarded the contracts of machine provider for the elections where former President Rodrigo Duterte was declared a winner.
They allegedly funded the bribes by over-invoicing the cost per voting machine, thereby creating a slush fund. "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," the district court announced in a statement.
The release did not explicitly name Smartmatic, but a Google search of the people indicted showed they worked for the election machine company.
The court charged the two executives with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and one substantive violation of the FCPA. Meanwhile Bautista, Pinate and Vasquez as well as another Smartmatic official named Elie Moreno, a dual citizen of Venezuela and Israel, are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and three counts of international laundering of monetary instruments.
The voting machine firm employees have been since placed on a leave of absence but the company issued a statement of assurance that elections worldwide, where they still provide election services, will still be held with integrity and transparency.
"No voter fraud has been alleged and Smartmatic is not indicted. Still, voters worldwide must be assured that the elections they participate in are conducted with the utmost integrity and transparency. These are the values that Smartmatic lives by," the statement said.
Back in 2020, Fox News reported the indictment of the Smartmatic executives for allegedly committing U.S. election fraud via their machines in an email to news outlets. In response, Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion defamation suit against the media agency and its parent company over the network's reporting on the manipulated results of the election claims. (Related: Voting machine company Smartmatic reaches SETTLEMENT with One America News Network over 2020 election coverage.)
Bautista denies any wrongdoing in the U.S. money laundering raps
Bautista, who headed the Philippines election commission from 2015 to 2017, has turned to X, formerly known as Twitter, to deny any wrongdoing or involvement in the money laundering scheme claiming, he "did not ask for nor receive any bribe money from Smartmatic or any other entity."
"I sense these charges were politically influenced by key Philippine officials. The voting machine company won the contract before, during and after my tenure as Chairman, a role I performed during the 2016 elections with zeal and competence in service of the Filipino people," he tweeted.
According to reports, Bautista awarded Smartmatic a $199 million contract to supply the Philippines with 94,000 voting machines for the 2016 presidential election. He vowed to face the charges. "I will fight for my exoneration in court and show that I have not committed any crime against the U.S government or the American people nor have I taken advantage or prejudiced them in any way," he said.
The Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) launched a probe after Bautista's estranged wife alerted the Philippines' National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) about her husband's alleged ill-gotten wealth worth $17.57 million or P1 billion. NBI has been hunting him since 2019 after the wife's allegation sparked an investigation in the nation's House of Representatives that led to his impeachment. He resigned hours before Congress announced the decision.
COMELEC banned Smartmatic in 2023 from bidding on election contracts, but the Supreme Court of the Philippines overturned the ban in April.
Neither the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's Office responded to confirm whether Bautista is already in U.S. custody as he was said to have been hiding in the United States.
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