Javier Aguilar sentenced to prison for bribery in Mexico and Ecuador

Javier Aguilar, a former trader for Vitol Inc., has been sentenced to four years in a U.S. federal prison for his role in international bribery and money laundering schemes involving energy contracts in Mexico and Ecuador.

A federal court in Brooklyn ordered Aguilar to forfeit $7.13 million and pay a $100,000 fine. The sentencing follows a conviction for conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Prosecutors demonstrated that between 2015 and 2020, Aguilar helped facilitate over $1 million in bribes to secure more than $500 million in oil and gas business.

In Ecuador, the scheme involved bribing officials at the state-owned Petroecuador to secure a fuel-oil contract valued at approximately $300 million. To bypass restrictions on private companies, conspirators used a Middle Eastern state-owned entity as an intermediary. In Mexico, Aguilar was linked to funneling roughly $600,000 in bribes to officials at Pemex Procurement International (PPI) to secure ethane gas supply contracts.

The illicit payments were concealed through complex financial structures, including shell companies in Panama, Curaçao, and the Cayman Islands, as well as sham invoices and fake contracts. Aguilar will be deported to Mexico upon completion of his prison sentence.