World News | Venezuelan Founder of Voting Machine Company Targeted by Trump Allies is Indicted on Bribery Charges
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. A federal grandy jury in Miami has charged the Venezuelan co-founder of a voting machine company targeted by allies of former President Donald Trump with paying more than USD 1 million in bribes to officials in the Philippines in exchange for contracts it won overseeing the island nation's elections nearly a decade ago.
Miami, Aug 9 (AP) A federal grandy jury in Miami has charged the Venezuelan co-founder of a voting machine company targeted by allies of former President Donald Trump with paying more than USD 1 million in bribes to officials in the Philippines in exchange for contracts it won overseeing the island nation's elections nearly a decade ago.
The Justice Department in a statement Thursday said Roger Pinate and a colleague at Boca Raton, Florida-based Smartmatic funneled bribes to the chairman of the Philippines' electoral commission through a slush fund created by overcharging for the cost of each voting machine it supplied authorities. The payments, between 2015 and 2018, were made to obtain business with the Philippines and secure the timely payment for its work, the Justice Department said.
To hide the corrupt payments to Juan Donato, the former chairman of the Commission on Elections in the Philippines, the co-conspirators allegedly used coded language to refer to the slush fund and created sham loan agreements to justify transfers to bank accounts located in Asia, Europe and the United States.
Smartmatic in a statement said it had placed the two employees on leaves of absence, effective immediately.
“No voter fraud has been alleged and Smartmatic is not indicted,” the company said in a statement. “Voters worldwide must be assured that the elections they participate in are conducted with the utmost integrity and transparency.” (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)