Former Vitol oil trader sentenced to four years in US prison over Ecuador and Mexico bribery

By Luc Cohen NEW YORK, September 18 (Reuters) — A former oil trader at Vitol, one of the world's largest energy trading companies, was sentenced on Friday to four years in prison in the U.S. over his 2024 conviction on corruption charges stemming from more than $1 million in bribes he paid to officials in Ecuador and Mexico to win business. Javier Aguilar was found guilty at trial on three counts of foreign bribery, foreign bribery conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. U.S. District Judge Eric Vitaliano handed down the sentence at a hearing in Brooklyn federal court. Aguilar's case was part of a sprawling Justice Department probe into commodity trading firms paying bribes to win business from state-run companies across Latin America. Vitol in December 2020 admitted to bribing officials in Brazil, Mexico and Ecuador and paid $164 million to resolve U.S. and Brazilian probes. Rival trader Gunvor in 2024 agreed to pay about $662 million to resolve U.S. and Swiss investigations into a scheme to pay bribes to Ecuadorean officials to win business. Prosecutors with the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office said Vitol obtained and retained more than $500 million worth of business with Mex