MIAMI — Federal prosecutors in Miami have charged voting technology company Smartmatic with money laundering and other offenses over more than $1 million in alleged bribes paid to election officials in the Philippines.
According to a superseding indictment filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the payments were made between 2015 and 2018 to secure a government contract for the 2016 Philippine presidential election and to ensure prompt payment for the company’s services.
Three former Smartmatic executives, including co-founder Roger Piñate, had been charged earlier in 2024, though the company itself was not named as a defendant at the time. Piñate, who no longer works for Smartmatic but remains a shareholder, has pleaded not guilty.
The case unfolds as Smartmatic pursues a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which the company accuses of spreading false claims that it helped rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
In a statement, Smartmatic denied the new criminal allegations, asserting that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami had been “misled and politically influenced by unnamed powerful interests.”
“This is again, targeted, political, and unjust,” the company said. “Smartmatic will continue to stand by its people and principles. We will not be intimidated by those pulling the strings of power.”
Prosecutors earlier sought permission to present evidence suggesting that revenue from a $300 million contract with Los Angeles County—to modernize its voting systems—was diverted to a “slush fund” allegedly controlled by Piñate. The fund was reportedly operated through offshore shell companies and fake invoices.
Piñate was also accused of bribing Venezuela’s former election chief by transferring to her a luxury home with a swimming pool in Caracas, allegedly to restore ties after Smartmatic withdrew from Venezuela in 2017, when it accused President Nicolás Maduro’s government of manipulating election results.
A hearing on the evidence related to the Los Angeles and Venezuela allegations is scheduled for next month. However, those details do not appear in the latest indictment signed by Jason Reding Quiñones, the newly appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
Founded over two decades ago by Venezuelan entrepreneurs, Smartmatic grew rapidly under the late Hugo Chávez, who promoted the use of electronic voting. The company went on to provide election technology in 25 countries across Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Smartmatic has since claimed that its business declined sharply after Fox News broadcast claims linking it to alleged election fraud in 2020. Fox has defended its reporting as legitimate coverage of newsworthy events, though it later aired a correction. The network continues to fight the defamation case, arguing that Smartmatic’s financial troubles stemmed from its own internal issues rather than media coverage.
Edgardo Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
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