Smartmatic Indicted For Money Laundering

Smartmatic — the company involved in a defamation lawsuit against Fox News over the latter’s reporting on the 2020 election — was indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami on Thursday for allegedly bribing a Philippine official in relation to the 2016 Philippine national elections.

The indictment added the parent company of Smartmatic, SGO Corporation Ltd., as a defendant in the case already underway against three Smartmatic executives. The indictment charges that between 2015 and 2018, Smartmatic executives Roger Alejandro Piñate Martinez, Jorge Miguel Vasquez, and others “caused at least $1 million in bribes to be paid” to the former chairman of COMELEC, according to the Department of Justice.

COMELEC stands for the Commission on Elections of the Republic of the Philippines. According to the indictment, COMELEC is an “independent agency mandated to enforce and administer election laws in the Philippines.”

According to the indictment, COMELEC opened the bidding process in 2014 for the lease of 23,000 election machines for the upcoming 2016 election. Smartmatic was awarded a contract in 2015. In 2015, COMELEC awarded a second contract to Smartmatic for the leasing of 70,977 voting machines and services for the 2016 election. Smartmatic was later awarded a third contract.

The indictment alleges that Smartmatic, along with its executives, offered to pay bribes to the COMELEC chairman in order to obtain the contracts, as well as to obtain the “release of favorable value added tax payments.”

In order to pay for the alleged bribes, the indicted co-conspirators allegedly over-invoiced the cost of each voting machine that was used in the 2016 Philippine elections. According to the Department of Justice, “they used coded language, created fraudulent contracts and sham loan agreements, and routed transactions through bank accounts in Asia, Europe, and the U.S., including within the Southern District of Florida.”

The indictment charges Smartmatic, along with Piñate and Vasquez, with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, as well as one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and three counts of international laundering of monetary instruments.

Smartmatic denied the allegations in a statement to The Federalist.

“This is again, targeted, political, and unjust,” Smartmatic said. “Smartmatic will continue to stand by its people and principles. We will not be intimidated by those pulling the strings of power.”

Smartmatic sued Fox News and Newsmax after the 2020 election alleging that concerns made by “commentators” on both networks about the vulnerability and security of Smartmatic tabulators amounted to defamation.

Notably, Fox News alleged in an August filing that it “seems irrefutable that” Smartmatic also gave unlawful gifts to the Los Angeles County official who helped obtain the firm’s “lucrative contract” with the county.” Fox News also alleged that Smartmatic “funneled” L.A. County tax dollars to a “slush fund.”