Ex-Miami banker and son of former Ecuador official pleads guilty in $16 million international scheme, DOJ says
MIAMI — A Miami man pleaded guilty on Tuesday for his role in a multimillion-dollar international bribery and money laundering scheme involving his father, who was a former Ecuadorian government official.
The U.S. Department of Justice said in a Wednesday press release that John Christopher Polit, a 43-year-old former banker, laundered bribe proceeds paid for the benefit of his father Carlos Ramon Polit Faggioni, the former Comptroller General of Ecuador, through the U.S. financial system and into various South Florida investments.
John Polit pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 30 and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. A federal district judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
According to federal court documents, Carlos Polit solicited and received bribes from Odebrech S.A., a Brazil-based construction conglomerate, in exchange for using his official position to remove and not impose fines to benefit the company and its business in Ecuador. Additionally, Carlos Polit received a bribe from an Ecuadorian businessman in 2015 in exchange for assisting him and his company in connection with certain contracts from Ecuador's state-owned insurance company.
Between 2010 and 2018, John Polit "helped his father launder these bribe proceeds" and then caused the bribes to "disappear" by layering the transactions through Panamanian accounts of intermediary companies and using Florida companies registered in the names of certain associates, federal prosecutors said.
Prosecutors added that John Polit would then use the laundered funds from his father's scheme to "purchase and renovate real estate in South Florida and elsewhere and to purchase restaurants, a dry cleaner, and other businesses."
His father Carlos Polit was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Oct. 1 after his April trial conviction. Meanwhile, Odebrecht S.A. pleaded guilty in December 2016 to conspiring to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in connection with a broader scheme to pay nearly $800 million in bribes to public officials in 12 countries, including Ecuador.
