U.S. employees of Direct Access Partners LLC (“DAP”), a New York broker-dealer, were charged with paying bribes to a senior government official in Venezuela’s state-owned economic development bank, Banco de Desarrollo Económico y Social de Venezuela (“BANDES”), to obtain business for DAP. The SEC, however, did not bring FCPA charges in its civil action, most likely because the alleged scheme involved broker-dealers rather than issuers.
Tomas Alberto Clarke Bethancourt (“Clarke”) is a U.S. citizen and, beginning in or around 2008, was the Senior Vice President in the Global Markets Group of DAP. Clarke was listed as the account opening salesman for the BANDES account. Jose Alejandro Hurtado, a U.S. citizen, was an employee of DAP. Haydee Leticia Pabon, a resident of Miami, Florida, was the Director for International Sales in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Russia for a Miami based distributor of Venezuelan cable television network programs. Iuri Rodolfo Bethancourt, a resident of Panama, is apparently related to co-defendant Clarke. Ernesto Lujan, a U.S. citizen, was the Managing Partner of the Global Markets Group of DAP and ran its Miami office beginning in approximately 2008. Benito Chinea and Joseph Demeneses are both senior executives at DAP’s New York headquarters.
