Vitaliano sentenced Aguilar to four years. Forfeiture and the fine are the judgment, not a new count.

A sentence after a jury conviction and a guilty plea is the end of the trial phase on those counts. Forfeiture and a fine are part of the judgment, not a new accusation. On Friday, Sept. 18, 2026, in Brooklyn, U.S. District Judge Eric N. Vitaliano sentenced Javier Aguilar, 52, a Mexican national living in Houston and a former oil trader, to four years in prison for two schemes to bribe officials in Ecuador and Mexico, and ordered $7.13 million in forfeiture and a $100,000 fine, and the Department stated which counts the jury returned and which counts the plea covered.

The Office of Public Affairs said trial evidence showed that from about 2015 to 2020, while Aguilar was a trader at Vitol Inc., the U.S. affiliate of energy trader Vitol, he paid more than $1 million in bribes to officials of Ecuador's Petroecuador and of PEMEX Procurement International, a PEMEX subsidiary, to obtain and retain business for Vitol. On the Ecuador scheme, the Department said he and co-conspirators agreed to bribe senior officials for a $300 million fuel-oil purchase contract, and used a Middle Eastern state-owned entity to circumvent Petroecuador restrictions on contracts with private companies. To conceal it, the Department said, they used fake contracts, sham invoices, and shell entities in Curaçao, Panama, and the Cayman Islands, and Aguilar used alias email accounts. On the Mexico scheme, trial evidence showed he used the same shell-and-invoice system to pay approximately $600,000 in bribes to two PPI officials for contracts to supply ethane to PEMEX. Those are the trial facts the Department described. Friday was the sentence. It was not a new charging document.

The Department stated the jury convicted Aguilar of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and of violating the FCPA, both in connection with the Ecuador scheme, and of conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with the Ecuador and Mexico schemes. He separately pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the FCPA and to violate the Travel Act in connection with the Mexico scheme. That is the count allocation the Department gave. It is not a guess about which line sat on which verdict form. The Eastern District said restitution will be determined later. A later restitution figure, if one is set, is not this forfeiture order, and it is not a new count. Seven co-conspirators, including three foreign officials, have pleaded guilty, and they have collectively agreed to forfeit more than $63 million. In December 2020, Vitol entered a deferred prosecution agreement and agreed to pay a combined $135 million in penalties, including conduct in Brazil. That corporate resolution is not Aguilar's personal judgment. The Office of Public Affairs release is dated Monday, Sept. 21. Monday is the announcement. The Eastern District dated the imposition to Friday, Sept. 18.