Former Direct Access Partners Executives Sentenced to Four Years in Prison for FCPA Violations

Venezuela Direct Access Partners LLC DAP

On March 27, Benito Chinea, the former CEO of now-defunct Direct Access Partners LLC (DAP), and another DAP employee were each sentenced to four years in prison, fined $40,000, and ordered to forfeit a total of more than $6 million for their role in a bribery scheme involving Venezuela’s state-owned economic development bank, Banco de Desarrollo Económico y Social de Venezuela (Bandes).  DAP, a New York based broker-dealer, earned more than $60 million in commissions from trades placed by Bandes over a five year period.  To obtain that business, DAP paid millions of dollars in bribes to a Bandes official, Maria De Los Angeles Gonzalez De Hernandez (Gonzalez), often routing them through third parties and offshore bank accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere.  The pair previously pleaded guilty last December in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to conspiracy to violate the FCPA and the Travel Act.  Several other DAP employees also pleaded guilty to similar charges in 2013, and Gonzalez herself pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Travel Act and to commit money laundering.  The SEC also brought an enforcement action against Chinea and several other DAP employees; that action was stayed pending resolution of the criminal matters.