Ernesto Lujan, Bribery, Money Laundering, New York 2013

Defendants Plead Guilty to Bribery, Money Laundering, and Conspiracy Charges

Three former employees of a New York-based broker-dealer have pleaded guilty to charges of bribery of foreign officials, money laundering, and conspiracy to obstruct justice in Manhattan federal court.

Ernesto Lujan, Jose Alejandro Hurtado, and Tomas Alberto Clarke Bethancourt, along with two other unnamed defendants, were charged with conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, to violate the Travel Act, and to commit money laundering, as well as substantive counts of these offenses.

The charges relate to a scheme to bribe a foreign official named Maria de los Angeles Gonzalez de Hernandez at Banco de Desarrollo Económico y Social de Venezuela, a state economic development bank in Venezuela, in exchange for receiving trading business from BANDES.

According to the allegations, the defendants, who worked or were associated with the Broker-Dealer through its Miami offices, devised a split with Gonzalez of the commission they received from trading business she controlled at BANDES. During this time period, the Broker-Dealer generated over $60 million in mark-ups and mark-downs from trades with BANDES.

The defendants also pleaded guilty to an additional charge of conspiring to violate the FCPA in connection with a similar scheme to bribe a foreign official employed by Banfoandes, another state economic development bank in Venezuela, and to conspiring to obstruct an examination by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of the Broker-Dealer.

Lujan and Clarke entered their guilty pleas yesterday before U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis, IV, and Hurtado pled guilty today, also before Judge Francis.

The case is a result of an investigation by the FBI’s New York Office, and is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.