Different persons, either politicians or their advisers or even family members, created fake invoices which SQM then paid.
It is alleged that those who created these fake invoices then passed those funds onto political parties in violation of campaign finance laws.
As to whether those funds bought any favors from the politicians for SQM, so far that has only been demonstrated in the case of Pablo Wagner, who was a former mining minister.
[3] The principal stock holder of SQM is Julio Ponce Lerou, formerly son-in-law of the late dictator Pinochet.
In the SQM case, the members of the governing coalition, the Nueva Mayoria, received funds as well.