On October 16, 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed sweeping foreign bribery and money laundering charges against Smartmatic, the international voting technology company, thrusting it into the center of a legal and political firestorm. The indictment, filed in the Southern District of Florida, accuses Smartmatic and several of its top executives of conspiring to pay over $1 million in bribes to a high-ranking Philippine election official, all to secure lucrative voting machine contracts for the country’s 2016 elections.
According to court documents cited by ABC News, the DOJ alleges that Smartmatic, alongside its parent company SGO Corporation, and executives Roger Alejandro Piñate, Jorge Miguel Vasquez, and Elie Moreno, orchestrated a complex scheme to funnel illicit payments to Juan Andres Donato Bautista, then chairman of the Philippines’ Commission on Elections. The payoff, federal prosecutors say, was a staggering $182 million in contracts for Smartmatic to supply voting machines and services for the May 2016 presidential election and other key races in the Philippines.
To finance the bribes, the DOJ claims the conspirators created a slush fund by over-invoicing the cost per voting machine. As detailed in the indictment and reported by The Miami Herald, the group allegedly concealed the scheme through coded language, fraudulent contracts, and sham loan agreements. The illicit funds were routed through a labyrinth of bank accounts across Asia, Europe, and the United States, including accounts in South Florida. The alleged bribery and laundering activities spanned from 2015 to 2018, with the indictment charging Smartmatic, Piñate, Vasquez, Bautista, and Moreno with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), conspiracy to commit money laundering, and multiple counts of international laundering of monetary instruments.
The case against Smartmatic and its executives is an expansion of a previous indictment filed last year. Both Piñate and Vasquez, who surrendered to authorities in 2024, have pleaded not guilty. Piñate, a Venezuelan-American and co-founder of Smartmatic, was released on an $8.5 million bond, while Vasquez, the company’s former vice president of hardware development, secured a $1 million bond. If convicted, each faces up to 20 years in prison on the money laundering charges, and up to five years for violating the FCPA.
Elie Moreno, a dual citizen of Venezuela and Israel who oversaw Smartmatic’s contracts in the Philippines, is also charged with money laundering. The indictment paints a picture of a sprawling international conspiracy, but notably, as CNN reports, it does not accuse Smartmatic of voter fraud or election rigging—a point of distinction given the company’s recent prominence in U.S. political discourse.
This legal drama comes at a particularly sensitive time for Smartmatic, which has been embroiled in high-profile defamation lawsuits against Fox News, Jeanine Pirro, Rudy Giuliani, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. These suits, seeking billions in damages, allege that the company’s reputation was severely damaged by false claims aired after the 2020 U.S. presidential election, with pro-Trump figures and outlets accusing Smartmatic’s technology of flipping votes in favor of Joe Biden. Smartmatic’s machines, while widely used overseas, were only employed in Los Angeles during the 2020 U.S. election, according to CNN.
Fox News, in its legal filings, has pointed to the new indictment as evidence that Smartmatic’s reputation was already compromised, arguing, “Smartmatic was and is a failing company: its continued cozy relationship with dictators, a decade of mismanagement and poor performance, and criminal bribery charges against its highest echelon of leaders.” Legal experts, including Los Angeles-based defense attorney Kate Mangels, say the DOJ’s case “severely limits” Smartmatic’s ability to claim ongoing damages from the 2020-era defamation, since it muddies the waters on what actually caused harm to the company’s reputation. “The defendants in the defamation lawsuits will likely argue that, to the extent Smartmatic’s reputation has been harmed, it is impossible to tease out what harm came from the alleged defamation and what harm came from the indictment,” Mangels told CNN.
Despite the mounting legal pressure, Smartmatic has come out swinging. In a statement echoed across outlets including Deadline and ABC News, the company categorically denied the allegations, declaring, “This is more of the same. A photocopy of the previous spurious indictment. We can now categorically deny those allegations. This is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law. We will contest the claims, and we are confident we will prevail in court. We believe the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida has been misled and politically influenced by powerful interests, despite our extensive cooperation with the government. This is again, targeted, political, and unjust.”
Smartmatic further stated, “Smartmatic will continue to stand by its people and principles. We will not be intimidated by those pulling the strings of power.” The company’s forceful response highlights its resolve to fight the charges, but also signals its frustration with what it perceives as a politically motivated prosecution.
The origins of the federal probe, as reported by The Miami Herald, trace back to 2017, when Bautista’s wife tipped off the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation about her husband’s “large amounts of unexplained wealth”—approximately one billion Philippine Pesos, or about $20 million. The couple was in the midst of a divorce, and the tip-off triggered an international investigation that ultimately led U.S. authorities to Smartmatic’s door.
Meanwhile, the broader political context has only added to the intrigue. Earlier in 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order pausing enforcement of the FCPA, directing the attorney general to halt new investigations unless exceptions were made. However, as Deadline notes, enforcement resumed in June 2025, with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announcing a renewed focus on cases implicating national security and economic competitiveness. About half of the open investigations from the Biden administration were closed, but Smartmatic’s case pressed on.
Smartmatic’s legal battles are not limited to Fox News. In 2024, the company settled a defamation lawsuit with Newsmax for $40 million, and earlier in 2025, One America News Network also settled for an undisclosed amount. The company’s $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox News remains active, with a New York judge yet to rule on summary judgment motions from both sides.
Founded in 2000 by Venezuelans Antonio Mugica, Alfredo José Anzola, and Roger Alejandro Piñate, Smartmatic first gained global attention when Venezuela’s then-president Hugo Chávez tapped the company to overhaul the country’s voting systems in 2004. The company’s expansion into the U.S. market included the acquisition of Sequoia Voting Systems, though it later divested its stake.
As the legal saga unfolds, Smartmatic finds itself at the crossroads of international business, U.S. political controversy, and the ever-contentious debate over election integrity. The coming months will determine not only the fate of the company and its executives, but also the broader narrative around voting technology and accountability in an era when trust in democracy feels more fragile than ever.