U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday arrested a managing partner at broker-dealer Direct Access Partners and charged him with participating in a scheme to pay bribes to a Venezuelan bank official, bringing to four the number of individuals criminally charged in the case. Ernesto Lujan, 50, was charged in connection with a conspiracy to pay bribes to Maria De Los Angeles Gonzalez De Hernandez, a senior official in Venezuela's state economic development bank. The U.S. Attorneys office for Manhattan said the scheme generated more than $60 million in fees for Direct Access Partners through business directed by Gonzalez, who prosecutors said received more than $5 million in kickback payments. Although the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been aggressively enforced by the U.S. Justice Department and SEC in recent years, the financial services industry had not been a focus. Last month, prosecutors described this case as a "wake-up call" to the industry.U.S. prosecutors in May had announced
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