In New York, the trial will begin against Javier Aguilar, former executive of Vitol, one of the companies that paid bribes to Petroecuador officials to benefit from oil pre-sale contracts for Oman Trading International.
Sign at the entrance to the Vitol headquarters building, in Geneva, Switzerland.
In the coming days, the Eastern District Court of New York will begin the trial against Javier Aguilar, a former Vitol executive accused by the United States Department of Justice of having paid bribes to Petroecuador officials to secure pre-sale contracts for USD 300 million.
Vitol is a trading company for oil and its derivatives that was an intermediary for Oman Trading International, a client of Petroecuador.
Aguilar pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. Prosecutors charge him with two counts: conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Aguilar, a 49-year-old Mexican, is a Mexican-American who worked as a trader for the Vitol subsidiary (based in Switzerland) in Houston, Texas. According to investigations by US prosecutors, he paid about $1.4 million in bribes through shell companies in tax havens.
Part of these bribes ended up in the pockets of Nilsen Arias, former International Trade Manager of Petroecuador, and another public official. The intermediaries were the brothers Antonio and Enrique Peré Ycaza.
The three Ecuadorians are being prosecuted in the United States and pleaded guilty, so they could be witnesses in this trial.
This January 2, 2024, the Court began selecting the jury that will carry out the trial. The process will last until Thursday, January 4, 2024, according to the information available in the US judicial system.
According to briefs filed by prosecutors, they hope to present several witnesses, including those from Vitol’s competitors. This means that witnesses could be presented related to the Gunvor and Ancap case, which are also being investigated in the United States and Ecuador for the payment of bribes.
The fuel oil contract
On December 6, 2016, Petroecuador and Oman Trading signed a contract for the pre-sale of some 17.1 million barrels of fuel oil over 30 months. In exchange, Ecuador received an advance payment of USD 300 million at an annual interest rate of 6.85%
This agreement was part of the hydrocarbon pre-sale contracts signed during the Rafael Correa government. And he is the center of the accusation against Javier Aguilar.
According to the indictment of US prosecutors, Aguilar paid bribes to Nilsen Arias and another Ecuadorian official to secure said contract for Vitol through a network of companies. The Mexican’s defense, on the other hand, admits the payments, but assures that Aguilar was unaware that they were bribes.
According to the Department of Justice, on April 15, 2015, under the direction of Aguilar, Lionel Hanst executed front agreements with a company in the Vitol group in favor of the company Zanza Oil, domiciled in Curacao. This is a shell company, which would have been used to pay bribes.
Hanst is a Dutchman who lived in Curacao, and who is also on trial in the United States and pleaded guilty. His communication with Aguilar, according to the documents prosecutors have, was constant.
On December 27, 2016, a few days after the contract between Oman Trading and Petroecuador was signed, Aguilar forwarded an email to Antonio Peré confirming that Vitol was going to be Oman Trading’s agent for the fuel oil contract.
The bribery route
To pay the bribes, Zanza Oil and Oil Pacific Ventures (of the Peré Ycazas) signed several front agreements. And in March 2018, Enrique Peré sent Hanst 39 invoices for payment of the alleged services of said agreements.
According to prosecutors, Hanst forwarded this email to Aguilar asking for payment for “the equatorenos.” Days later, Vitol transferred USD 750,000 from an account in the United Kingdom to one of Zanza Oil in Curacao. Aguilar told him: “That’s correct… go ahead. But make payments for no more than 150,000, and make them every 15 days. They need to be patient.”
Following these instructions, according to Zanza Oil’s account statements, between May and June 2018, the company made three payments for 201,000 euros and one for USD 19,200 to the accounts of Oil Pacific Ventures in the Cayman Islands and Curacao.
Oil Pacific Ventures then moved the money to accounts controlled by Nilsen Arias and the other Ecuadorian official, who has not yet been publicly identified. Between August 2015 and 2018, Arias received about USD 650,000 and the other Petroecuador official received USD 270,000.
The unidentified official is someone who worked in the Ministry of Hydrocarbons between 2013 and 2016. In those years, Pedro Merizalde and Carlos Pareja Yanuzzelli were in charge of that portfolio.
25 cents per barrel
The money for the bribes came from the same Petroecuador contract with Oman Trading. Vitol was in charge of reselling the fuel oil, for which it obtained a commission per barrel. Of this commission, 25 cents per barrel were transferred to the Peré Ycaza companies for the payment of bribes.
Recordings of telephone calls and meetings between Javier Aguilar and the Peré Ycazas (who began to collaborate with justice) talk about these payments until 2020.
According to the investigation of the case against Aguilar, in a call in February 2020, the Peré family demanded Aguilar for these pending payments. “It’s a commitment … I mean, I handle it. It will be done. I have to accelerate this, so that there are no more obstacles,” Aguilar assured.
On the same day of the telephone conversation, one of the Peré Ycazas sends Aguilar a spreadsheet in which he indicates that they were owed more than USD 2.5 million in commissions, for more than 17 million barrels of fuel oil from the contract with Oman Trading.
A few days later, in a new telephone conversation, Aguilar says that he has asked that the issue be resolved quickly. “I told them: we owe you so much; I need to give you a show of appreciation… I need you to send me, right now, 250.”
Days after this conversation, Aguilar orders two transfers of USD 75,550 and USD 62,664 to an account of the Peré Ycaza companies.
