All Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions have a point of origin – facts or circumstances which cause law enforcement to investigate.
This post highlights the origins of 2023 FCPA enforcement actions as well as historical origins.
As highlighted in this recent post, the Department of Justice recently announced an FCPA (and related) enforcement action against various individuals associated with Smartmatic in connection with a bribery scheme in the Philippines related to voting machines and election services.
Among the individuals criminally charged (with money laundering offenses) was Juan Andres Donate Bautista (the former Chairman of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) in the Philippines). The DOJ actually criminally charged Bautista with money laundering offenses in September 2023 and the criminal complaint describes a most interesting origin.
The criminal complaint includes an affidavit by a Special Agent with the U.S. Department of Homeland assigned to the Miami Field Office’s Illicit Proceeds and Foreign Corruption Group – a group that investigates money laundering and foreign corruption.
The Special Agent states:
“In or around August 2017, Bautista’s wife [Patricia Cruz-Bautista] informed Philippine National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) [an agency of the Philippine government under the Philippine Department of Justice, responsible for handling and solving major high-profile or complex criminal cases] agents that her husband had large amounts of unexplained wealth. She informed NBI’s Anti-Fraud Division that her husband had approximately one billion Philippine Pesos, or approximately $20 million USD, of “ill-gotten wealth.” At their residence, she found foreign bank account information for Baumann, Shell Company X and Shell Company Y, that she previously did not know existed. Additionally, at the residence, Bautista’s wife also discovered stacks of cash of Philippine pesos and approximately thirty-five (35) “Passbooks” identifying multiple cash deposits at bank accounts in the Philippines held in Bautista’s and family members’ names that she previously did not know about.
Based, in part, on this information, HSI initiated an investigation that focused on employees of Companies 2, 3, and 4 and their use of various overseas bank accounts of the Companies’ vendor to bribe Bautista – a Philippine government official – for lucrative election voting machine and related services contracts with COMELEC for the 2016 Philippine elections. ln addition, the investigation focused on Bautista’s acts to launder his bribe proceeds related to the scheme.”
For additional reading on drama surrounding Bautista and his estranged wife, see here, here, here, and here.
