What happened with the $40 million contract given to GEMALTO?
In a previous post I revealed how Venezuela had basically surrendered to Cuba responsibilities related to citizenry identification issues. In doing so, the Chavez regime effectively gave access to sensible personal identification data of all Venezuelan citizens to Cuba (through ALBET) and, consequently, to whomever ALBET decides to subcontract. However, Germany's Bundesdruckerei is not the only multinational that got into the dodgy deal. For there's also Netherlands-headquartered GEMALTO, which got a $40 million contract through a Mexican subsidiary (Gemalto Mexico S.A. de C.V.) on 20 August 2008, for the provision of six (6) million polycarbonate ID cards with chips.