This is an original investigation by the investigative journalistic team Fifth Element Lab.
Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) revealed the identity of two managers in Houston who were allegedly bribed by the Swiss firm Vitol, and the disclosure of their names was obtained thanks to a resolution of the National Transparency Institute (INAI).
“The former officials who allegedly received bribes are Carlos Espinosa Barba and Gonzalo Guzmán Manzanilla, who at the time held the position of General Manager of Contracting of Pemex Procurement International, Inc. (PPI)”, reported the legal direction of the oil company in a document sent to Fifth Element Lab.
Espinosa and Guzmán worked until February and May 2020 at PPI, the Pemex subsidiary in Texas in charge of contracting international suppliers. Both reside in the United States and neither was available for comment.
Pemex reported that the names of the alleged bribes were given to it by Vitol on May 19, a year and a half after the director of Pemex, Octavio Romero, demanded that the CEO of Vitol give him the names of those who had received the bribes. illegal payments.
The case was uncovered in December 2020, when the European company confessed to the United States authorities that its executives had given 2 million dollars in bribes to officials in Mexico and Ecuador, and delivered another 8 million in Brazil, in exchange for information. to win contracts in those countries.
Although Pemex did not specify the date of the money transfers or the amount of the bribes that the former Mexican officials allegedly received, the legal department of the state company revealed some details about the contract involved in the illegal payments.
This is SAP contract 5100433317 for the supply of ethane at the Pajaritos terminal, in Coatzacoalcos. PPI launched a tender in April 2018 to buy ethane over the next two years, and the $231 million contract was originally won by Dutch company Sabic Petrochemicals BV, according to the ruling signed by Carlos Espinosa on May 23 of that year.
Unexpectedly, the Dutch company withdrew its proposal and without further explanation sent a letter to Pemex on June 8 in which it notified that it did not accept the terms and conditions of the contract.
Three days later, Espinosa sent a letter to Vitol’s legal representative, Javier Alejandro Aguilar Morales, where he notified him of the decision to award the contract to Vitol and asked to adjust his proposal to assume the price of the winning proposal. Aguilar accepted and the next day sent the new economic proposal, according to internal Pemex documents to which Quinto Element Lab had access.
Aguilar is pointed out by the US justice system as one of those responsible for bribing Petroecuador officials. Espinosa declined to respond to messages sent to his mobile phone, and a security guard in his office reported that the executive did not wish to give interviews. The contract under investigation does not indicate what role Guzmán Manzanilla played.
The contract and the names of the Mexican officials who received the alleged bribes are part of the investigation folder FED/FECC/0000035/2021 that the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) initiated on January 14, 2021 to clarify the illegal payments. of Vitol.
Through Transparency requests filed since the case broke out, both Pemex and the FGR had refused to identify the officials who allegedly received bribes and who were under investigation, but the INAI ordered that their identities be made known because they were a case of corruption in the public interest.
Letter from the Pemex Transparency Unit, where it identifies the probable perpetrators.
Gonzalo Guzmán worked for 20 years at Pemex, where he was in charge of negotiating contracts and managing purchase orders, while Carlos Espinosa was manager of the Pemex subsidiary in Houston from September 2017 to February 2020. His current public data indicates that both continue to reside and work in Texas.
The Pemex subsidiary in Houston did not respond to the questionnaire that was sent to it and the FGR did not clarify whether the former officials were summoned to testify or whether it will accept the proposal to repair the damage for 30 million dollars that Vitol offered.
* Fifth Element Lab is a investigative journalism association that seeks to support reporting that empowers citizens and strengthens accountability.
