As highlighted here, in September 2020 the DOJ announced that Javier Aguilar (a former employee of Vitol Inc.) was criminally charged for “his alleged participation in a five-year international bribery and money laundering scheme involving corrupt payments to Ecuadorian officials.” (In December 2020, Vitol resolved a net $90 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action for conduct in Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico – see here).
In December 2022, the DOJ filed a superseding indictment adding FCPA and related charges in connection with an alleged Mexican bribery scheme. The DOJ alleged that Aguilar “together with others, engaged in a bribery and money laundering scheme involving the payment of bribes to Mexican officials … in exchange for, among other things, securing improper advantages for Vitol in obtaining and retain business with PEMEX and PEMEX Procurement International.
As highlighted here, in February 2024 Aguilar was convicted at trial for paying bribes to Ecuadorian officials and laundering the bribe money for both the Ecuador and Mexico bribery schemes.
Yesterday, the DOJ announced that Aguilar “pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and engaging in interstate and foreign commerce to promote and to distribute the proceeds of commercial bribery for paying bribes to officials at PEMEX Procurement International (PPI), a wholly owned affiliate of the Mexican state-owned oil company, PEMEX.”
As noted in the DOJ release:
The FCPA conspiracy charge, based in the Southern District of Texas (SDTX), was initially filed in the EDNY in December 2022 as part of a superseding indictment consolidating both the Ecuador- and Mexico-related conduct. In May 2023, the government consented to Aguilar’s pre-trial motion to dismiss that charge in the EDNY on venue grounds. That charge and others related were then refiled in SDTX in August 2023. As part of his guilty plea, Aguilar consented to transfer the SDTX case back to the EDNY, reconsolidating the cases.”
In the DOJ release Breon Peace (United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York) stated:
“With [this] guilty plea the defendant admits his role in the widespread corruption of the international commodities market and to casting aside laws and rules that apply to all to unfairly line the pockets of the few. The actions of the defendant and his co-conspirators, and of those who act similarly, destroys people’s faith in their governments, disadvantages those who play by the rules, undermines confidence in American businesses worldwide, and will not be tolerated by this Office or our law enforcement partners.”
Jeffrey Veltri (Special Agent in Charge for the FBI’s Miami Field Office) stated:
“The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been the law of the land, and enforceable worldwide, for decades. Yet unscrupulous businessmen still try to bribe their way to profit. My message to them is that the charges and penalties you will face are not worth the gain. I want to commend the U.S Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, and the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs for their diligence pursuing this case, but especially the agents and analysts who leave no stone unturned in pursuit of FCPA violators.”
