Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez, a 49-year-old Venezuelan citizen and resident of Boca Raton, Florida, has been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in connection with an alleged bribery and money laundering scheme related to the 2016 Philippine elections. Pinate, who holds the position of President at the election machine company Smartmatic, was indicted alongside two other executives and a former Chairman of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) of the Republic of the Philippines.
The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida, charges Pinate, along with Jorge Miguel Vasquez, a 62-year-old U.S. citizen from Davie, Florida, and Elie Moreno, a 44-year-old dual citizen of Venezuela and Israel, with multiple counts, including conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and international money laundering. Also indicted is Juan Andres Donato Bautista, the 60-year-old former Chairman of COMELEC, who allegedly accepted over $1 million in bribes.
According to the indictment, the bribes were paid between 2015 and 2018 to secure business related to providing voting machines and election services for the 2016 Philippine elections. The co-conspirators allegedly created a slush fund by over-invoicing the cost per voting machine, which was then used to pay the bribes. To conceal the illegal payments, the group used coded language, fraudulent contracts, and sham loan agreements, laundering the funds through various bank accounts in Asia, Europe, and the United States.
Pinate and Vasquez face charges of conspiracy to violate the FCPA and substantive violations of the FCPA, each carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison. All four individuals, including Moreno and Bautista, are also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and three counts of international laundering of monetary instruments, each count carrying a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
The case was announced by several high-ranking officials, including Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida, and Special Agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS CI). The HSI’s El Dorado Task Force in Miami is investigating the case, with prosecutorial efforts led by the DOJ’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.
The DOJ’s press release notably omits any mention of Pinate’s role as President of Smartmatic, a company that was previously at the center of controversy following the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. While the indictment is a significant development, it is essential to remember that an indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.