After the statements before the American court of Nilsen Arias, the former director of international trade of Petroecuador and former Correismo strongman, who admitted to receiving bribes from several oil companies, including Trafigura, the question arises what will be the fate of this company in relation to Petroecuador. Arias gave his confessions in court process no. 20-CR-390, U.S. District Court, in the courts of New York.

Trafigura has been one of the companies with the greatest weight in commercial dealings with Petroecuador and currently the Trafigura Group maintains three current contracts with the state oil company of Ecuador:

In addition, Trafigura was at the forefront of the main suppliers of derivatives in the periods 2010-2020, according to the report of the company Petroecuador itself, signed by the former director Pablo Luna and the former director of International Trade Pablo Noboa, which this newspaper had access to.

According to the information he published Bloomberg, These days, the former director of international trade of the Ecuadorian state oil company, Nilsen Arias, said that he was bribed by three of the world’s largest raw material trading companies. “This testimony publicly implicates the Trafigura Group, the second independent oil operator in the world, in an Ecuadorian corruption scheme,” the international note said. Furthermore, the foreign news agency says the accusation will increase pressure on Trafigura “which was accused by Swiss prosecutors last month of bribing Angolan officials and also exposed by a US investigation into improper payments in Brazil”.

Regarding the future actions of the Ecuadorian oil company, after learning that the company Trafigura was mentioned in bribery matters, as established in the trial in the United States, the state company analyzes the situation: “EP Petroecuador is permanently monitoring the legal process against Nilsen Arias, which until mid-2017 .was manager of international trade. The actions of the public company in connection with this news and any progress in the said process will be shaped in accordance with what is determined by the applicable legal framework.”

Enrique Cadena Marín would be on the path to secret payments to Nilsen Arias, according to the Petroecuador case investigation

In any case, there are previous experiences where companies in the same situation as Trafigura were excluded from Petroecuador’s customer register. Arias spoke of bribes from Trafigura, Vitol, Gunvor and Sargeant Marine as part of a bribery scheme. In the case of Gunvor and Vitol, they are already off the list.

Indeed, in April 2021, the oil company Gunvor Group was removed from Petroecuador’s list of suppliers after its acts of corruption became known. “She will no longer be invited nor will she be able to participate in the various tenders conducted by the public oil company,” Petroecuador indicated in a statement at the time.

The public oil company reacted like this after the publication of the portal Bloomberg revealed that a former employee of the foreign company admitted to paying bribes to Ecuadorian government officials to get the job. The figure would amount to more than $22 million in payments made between 2012 and 2020.

Previously, Petroecuador reported in December 2020 that it had “shut down” the transnational company Vitol Inc. from its list of suppliers and clients, following reports of alleged acts of corruption being investigated in the United States.

In an official statement titled: “The current management of EP Petroecuador has not maintained a business relationship with the company under investigation for bribery, Vitol Inc,” Petroecuador indicated that it has decided to exclude the company as part of its list of suppliers and customers and “will no longer be invited, nor will they be able to participate in international tenders for the purchase and sale of hydrocarbons carried out by an Ecuadorian public company.”

Antonio Peré created an ‘offshore’ structure while channeling bribes to Petroecuador

In the early days of 2024, it became known that Javier Aguilar, a Mexican resident of the United States, a former employee of Vitol, will be tried in the United States on official charges of two charges: conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and conspiracy to launder money . This character also admitted to paying a bribe to Nilsen Arias.

After learning about these previous cases, it is possible that the procedure of excluding the client from registration will be carried out.

Diario EL UNIVERSO contacted Trafigura to inquire about Arias’ latest statements and to learn about his relationship with Petroecuador. The short answer was: “We have no comment.”

The complaints against Nilsen Arias were first filed by Fernando Villavicencio ten years ago. Villavicencia, who was a presidential candidate, was killed by assassins on August 9 last year in the middle of the election campaign. The principals are still being investigated.

As for oil broker Trafigura, Villavicencio said in the weeks before the murder that the company was loading oil on behalf of Uruguay’s Ancap. He explained that he resold crude oil to Peru and the United States, and in exchange he brought fuel contracts from the United States. In 2018, the Uruguayan prosecutor’s office determined that Ecuador was damaged by this bad business for 205 million dollars. As for Villavicencio, the US justice system agreed with him, finding that Ancap paid commissions to Arias through Trafigura. Villavicencio also revealed damages and bribes to Vitol and Gunvor.