Jorge Granados, Bribery of Foreign Officials, Florida 2011

Jorge Granados, Bribery of Foreign Officials, Florida 2011

In a shocking case of corporate corruption, Jorge Granados, the former CEO of Latin Node Inc. (LatiNode), has been sentenced to 46 months in prison for his role in bribing foreign government officials in Honduras. Granados, 55, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in connection with a scheme to pay Honduran officials more than $500,000 in bribes.

U.S. District Judge Joan A. Lenard for the Southern District of Florida also ordered Granados to serve two years of supervised release following the prison term. This case marks the latest in a series of high-profile corruption cases involving U.S. companies operating in foreign markets.

According to court documents, Granados and other LatiNode executives, including Manuel Salvoch, Manuel Caceres, and Juan Pablo Vasquez, agreed to a secret deal to pay bribes to Hondutel officials, including the general manager, a senior attorney for Hondutel, and a minister of the Honduran government who became a representative on the Hondutel Board of Directors.

Between September 2006 and June 2007, Granados and others caused more than $500,000 in bribes to be paid to the Honduran officials, concealing many of the payments by laundering the money through LatiNode subsidiaries in Guatemala and to accounts in Honduras controlled by the Honduran government officials.

LatiNode pleaded guilty on April 7, 2009, to a one-count information charging the company with a criminal violation of the FCPA and agreed to pay a $2 million fine. The resolution of the criminal investigation of LatiNode reflected, in large part, the actions of eLandia International Inc. in disclosing potential FCPA violations to the authorities after eLandia’s acquisition of LatiNode in 2007.

The case was prosecuted by Principal Deputy Chief Jeffrey H. Knox and Trial Attorney Amanda Aikman of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section. Significant assistance was provided by Trial Attorney James M. Koukios. The case was investigated by the FBI’s Miami Field Office and ICE Homeland Security Investigation’s Foreign Corruption Investigations Group in Miami.

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