Bribery Scandal To Cost Glencore $1.1B — Billionaire Execs Avoid Blame, For Now
Marc Rich, the legendary commodities trader, fled the United States for Europe in 1983 after being indicted for trading Iranian oil during the 1979 hostage crisis and evading $50 million in taxes. From Switzerland, Rich continued to operate Marc Rich & Co. until selling the trading house to his protégés in 1994. By the time President Billon his last day in office in 2001, the company had been renamed Glencore International.
Two Glencore traders have so far pled guilty and are soon to be sentenced. First, Emilio Jose Heredia Collado of California admitted to conspiring to manipulate the price of marine fuel oil in the ports of Los Angeles and Houston. Second is the government’s star witness, Anthony Stimler, formerly a senior oil trader overseeing West Africa. Stimler last year pled guilty to bribery and money laundering.
Other details include $147,000 in “Operation Carwash” payments made to three Brazilian officials at state-controlled oil giant Petrobras, which were disguised as a “service fee” of 50 cents per barrel of Brazilian oil that Glencore bought. All told, Glencore allegedly made $40 million in illicit payments to Brazilian officials.
DOJ documents don’t mention any Glencore execs other than Stimler and Heredia Collado by name. But there are plenty of unnamed parties. “Executive 1” is a U.K. citizen who until 2019 was responsible for oil trading worldwide. “Executive 2” was an oil and gas trader who had been with the company since 1987 and left in 2018 after having approved a $325,000 payment by an intermediary to Nigerian officials. “Executive 3,” another U.K. citizen, directed trading in copper and zinc.