Photo: Guenter Schiffmann/Bloomberg

A former Siemens executive pleaded guilty to conspiring to pay $100 million in bribes to senior Argentine government officials to guarantee a $1 billion contract to produce national identity cards for Argentinian citizens, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of the Southern District of New York said Thursday.

Eberhard Reichert, a German citizen, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act before U.S. District Judge Denise Cote. Reichert was extradited to the United States following his arrest in Croatia in September.

“Eberhard Reichert tried to sidestep laws designed to root corruption out of the government contracting process. As he admitted in Manhattan federal court today, Reichert helped to conceal tens of millions of dollars in bribes that were paid to unfairly secure a lucrative contract from the Argentine government,” Berman said in a statement. “Today's plea should be a warning to others that our office is committed to bringing corrupt criminals to justice, no matter how long they run from the law.”

Reichert's criminal scheme extended back to 1994, when Argentina put out a bid for a new national ID card. Siemens, the U.S. Attorney's Office said, set aside $100 million to bribe officials throughout the South American country's government, including the opposition party and candidates for office.

Siemens was awarded the contract in 1998. Reichert was one of the people in charge of it.

Reichert and others attempted to conceal their bribes through shell companies associated with their targets, hoping to disguise the illicit nature of the payments. One such company, MFast Consulting, was really a vehicle to funnel $27 million to a co-defendant's use in bribe payments. Later, Carlos Sergi would use a Swiss arbitration process to collect the company's contract, which ended up costing Siemens an additional $8.8 million to settle the arbitration in 2007.

The bribe scheme hit choppy waters in the early 2000s. After a new Argentine government took power, members of the conspiracy demanded new bribes to incoming officials to get the project back up and running. Despite the project's termination in 2001, those involved attempted to get their due by pushing Siemens to file for a fraudulent arbitration claim in Washington, D.C., against Argentina. Between 2002 and 2007, Siemens was forced to pay approximately $28 million to those involved to keep the bribery scheme from being uncovered, and Siemens able to secure contracts from Argentina going forward.

Lankler Siffert & Wohl counsel Abigail Rosen and partner Gabrielle Friedman represented Reichert. Neither responded to a request for comment.