Investing.com -- The former Chief Financial Officer of Siemens S.A. Argentina pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiring to pay millions of dollars in bribes to government officials in Argentina in connection with a contract to produce national identity cards.
Andres Truppel, 61, Argentina, pleaded guilty in U.S. Federal Court, Southern District of New York, to conspiracy of violating the anti-bribery, internal controls and books and records provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In 2008, Siemens AG (XETRA:SIEGn) paid a $1.6 billion fine, after admitting it violated several FCPA clauses by bribing high-level officials around the world, including former Argentina president Carlos Menem.
A decade earlier, the Argentina government awarded Siemens AG a $1 billion contract to produce the state of art national identity cards, a contract it terminated only three years later. As part of his guilty plea, Truppel admitted to executing a $1 million payment to an official in the Argentina Ministry of Justice in exchange for a bribe, as well as a $27 million contract to a consulting company to help conceal an illicit payment.
In addition, Truppel admitted that he disguised the bribes along with several of his co-conspirators by laundering the funds through a variety of shell companies. Truppel also acknowledged that he paid a sum of $7.4 million as part of a hedging contract to a foreign exchange currency company in the Bahamas in exchange for hiding the illegal bribery payments.
As part of the settlement eight years ago, Siemens Bangladesh Limited and Siemens S.A. Venezuela pleaded guilty to violating the anti-bribery provisions of FCPA, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. At the time, the two Siemens divisions paid a fine of $450 million to settle the charges.
Last year, Truppel agreed to pay an $80,000 fine to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle civil charges related to the case.
The case is being investigated by the FBI's Washington field office.