Javier Aguilar, 52, a Mexican national living in Houston, Texas, and a former oil trader, was sentenced in Brooklyn, New York, to four years in prison for his role in two separate schemes to bribe foreign officials in Ecuador and Mexico. He was also ordered to pay $7.13 million in forfeiture and a $100,000 fine.
“This sentence makes clear that corrupt actors, like Javier Aguilar, who facilitated and led two major international bribery and money laundering schemes will be brought to justice and punished accordingly,” said Assistant Attorney General Andrew A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “We will root out those who brazenly undermine the rule of law and use our financial system to launder their corrupt funds, and we will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.”
“This sentence sends a powerful message of deterrence to those who might be tempted to engage in similar bribery schemes,” said U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. for the Eastern District of New York. “This sentencing is further demonstration of our office’s long-standing commitment to rooting out corruption in the commodities markets. We will be indefatigable in protecting American interests from corruption that unfairly tilts the playing field and threatens American businesses.”
“Aguilar bribed, falsified, manipulated the system, and engaged in several corrupt financial practices, all while using U.S. financial institutions to carry out his criminal actions,” said Assistant Director Heith Janke of the FBI Criminal Division. “This case demonstrates the broad reach of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the FBI’s ability to investigate and bring criminals to justice who seek to engage in this type of crime.”
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Aguilar paid more than $1 million in bribes to officials of Ecuador’s state-owned oil company Petroecuador, and of PEMEX Procurement International (PPI), a subsidiary of Mexico’s state-owned oil company PEMEX, in order to obtain and retain business for his then-employer, Vitol Inc. The trial evidence showed that between 2015 and 2020, Aguilar was a trader at Vitol Inc. (Vitol), the U.S. affiliate of one of the largest energy trading companies in the world. As part of the scheme, Aguilar and his co-conspirators agreed to bribe senior Ecuadorian officials to obtain a $300 million contract to purchase fuel oil for Vitol. Aguilar and his co-conspirators used another Middle Eastern state-owned entity to circumvent Petroecuador’s restrictions on contracts with private companies. In return for the promise and payments of bribes, the Ecuadorian officials then ensured that the Middle Eastern state-owned entity and Vitol were awarded the contract.
To conceal the scheme, Aguilar and his co-conspirators used a series of fake contracts, sham invoices, and shell entities incorporated in Curaçao, Panama, and the Cayman Islands. Aguilar also used alias email accounts to communicate with his co-conspirators.
The evidence at trial also demonstrated that Aguilar used the same system of shell entities and sham invoices to launder bribe payments to two officials at PPI. In total, Aguilar paid approximately $600,000 in bribes to PPI officials to obtain contracts for Vitol to supply hundreds of millions of dollars of ethane gas to PEMEX.
The jury convicted Aguilar of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and violating the FCPA in connection with the Ecuador bribery scheme, and conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with the Ecuador and Mexico bribery schemes. He separately pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the FCPA and to violate the Travel Act in connection with the Mexico bribery scheme.
Seven of Aguilar’s co-conspirators, including three foreign government officials, have pleaded guilty for their roles in the schemes. These individuals have collectively agreed to forfeit more than $63 million in proceeds from the schemes.
In December 2020, Vitol admitted to bribing officials in Ecuador, Mexico, and Brazil in violation of the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA. Vitol entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Criminal Division’s White Collar and Corporate Enforcement Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. As a part of the resolution, Vitol agreed to pay a combined $135 million in penalties as part of a coordinated resolution with the Justice Department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and authorities in Brazil.
FBI Miami’s International Corruption Squad investigated the case.
Assistant Chief Derek J. Ettinger of the White Collar and Corporate Enforcement Section, Trial Attorney D. Hunter Smith of the Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section (MNF), and Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick M. Axelrod for the Eastern District of New York are prosecuting the case, with assistance from Deputy Chief Suzanne Elmilady and Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherin Daniel for the Southern District of Texas. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan P. Lax for the Eastern District of New York was also responsible for the case. The MNF Special Financial Investigations Unit and the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs also provided substantial assistance.
The Criminal Division’s White Collar and Corporate Enforcement Section is responsible for investigating and prosecuting FCPA and Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA) matters. Information about the Justice Department’s FCPA and FEPA enforcement efforts can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa.
MNF’s mission is to take the profit out of crime, eliminate drug cartels, and protect the U.S. financial system. MNF pursues criminal prosecutions and criminal and civil asset recovery actions involving: financial facilitators who launder profits for criminals; financial institutions and their officers and employees whose actions threaten the U.S. financial system and financial institutions; international money launderers who support transnational organized crime; and the top command and control of international drug trafficking organizations.
MNF’s International Unit investigates and prosecutes cross-border money laundering schemes involving transnational criminal organizations, cartels, foreign official corruption and related money laundering affecting the U.S. financial system and prosecutes criminal cases and civil forfeiture matters to recover the proceeds of those crimes.
